Last week, my friend Jules died, and yesterday I
attended his funeral. I feel heart-weary and numb, and I have a lot ahead of me
over the next few weeks. The experience of collective grief, of being part of
this huge community of people who were touched and inspired by this man, is
intense. This is one of those losses that will resonate for a very long time.
It’s hard to think. I came home from the funeral
and reception yesterday feeling blank and exhausted, swirling with feelings
about church, my Catholic upbringing, the confusion I have about my role in
this community, of how I have come to belong and at the same time still not quite belong.
About the feelings I have around a job that slowly became not just a job, but a
role in a large, close knit and spiritually rich community. To stand in the avalanche
of must-do’s and interviews and follow-ups and an endless tide of e-mails and
realize suddenly that I am emotionally and spiritually connected to a community;
that I am in service to a force that is far more than a checklist.
Growing up Catholic, I understood about
self-sacrifice, but being in service is different. At the funeral the priest
pointed out that service is more than do-gooding, and I think I understood what
he meant. You can perform a litany of good deeds without the spirit of service.
I don’t think it negates the deeds, but I do think that a deep desire to serve, that is connected to something beyond our personal needs, is what illuminates
the Jules’s of the world. Simply said, I think it’s love.
The last eighteen months or so have been about me
coming to understand with a deep sense of finality that suffering is
inescapable. Try as I might, I have not been able to run away and construct some stone fortress
into which no chaos, no pain, no grief, and no emotional connection can come. I’m
in deep. And no matter where I went, I would still end up in the same place. To
paraphrase Mary Oliver, there’s no sense wasting time looking for an easier
path.
There will be more people I care about who will
die. Everything is uncertain, and no amount of trying to control the swirling
chaos of life is going to change the outcome. I can’t resist it or hold it at
arm’s length or bend it to my will. I can only be present to it. I’m here, I’m connected, I’m a part of this
and all of the pain and the richness and the goodness and the love that comes
with it.
The below interview was filmed when Jules was
91. He died at 96. He was still volunteering at the Information Desk up until
two weeks before his death.
--Kristen McHenry
3 comments:
What a beautiful heart he wears on his sleeve.
My condolences.
Thanks, Steven. He was a giver to the end, and an inspiration to countless people. Family members coming to check in at the Desk for their loved ones who were going into surgery felt instantly at home with Jules. No matter how stressed or angry or upset they were, Jules managed to calm them down and somehow, by the end of the day, they were hugging him and thanking him for his care. Most of the people who interacted with him remembered him if they came back even years later.
Jules seemed like a very good and wise person. He lived almost a whole century, so he lived and experienced the immensity of almost all that's been the last 100 years. I'm so sorry for your loss, my dear. But he's in heaven, with my dad and with all the good people the world has ever known. You may have doubts about all this. I have none. Several spiritual experiences I have had in my own life have left me 100% doubtless. I hope you're able to cheer up and enjoy a wonderful upcoming Thanksgiving. Your friend Jules and hundreds of millions of others are enjoying an existence so wondrous, it's beyond our finite human comprehension!
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