How to Live, How to Die

Rev. Amy Russell - 2010-02-21

A letter to God from a six year old girl whose name is Jane, went like this:
Dear God,
Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones,
Why don't you just keep the ones you got now?
Jane

I happen to agree with her.

When I realized that the title of this sermon, How to Live, How to Die, sounded like I was going to try to tell you how to do those things, I realized that I really meant for the sermon title to have a question mark after each of those phrases, How to Live? And How to Die? And how are those two things related?

These questions and others like “What's important in life?” come to mind when you experience the death of someone you love. These questions come to us at other times too, when we experience upheaval in our lives like when we lose a job and wonder about what's next for us in our careers, or when we retire, or when a child leaves home. These questions are ageless and life-long. I don't think I'll ever stop asking myself those questions.

But when my father had his stroke right after Christmas and my family and I sat with him as he lay dying, these questions began asserting themselves for me in a new way. As I watched him die, I began to see how he had lived. The way he died with all his family around him, loving him, and feeling such appreciation for what he had given us, was determined by the way he lived.

I can honestly say that my father was one of the most loving people I've ever known. And that's not just me saying that because he was my father and he's gone. I can't tell you how many people who have met my father over the last half of his life have said something like that. Friends of mine who met him would later tell me that they were struck by how open and loving he was to them, just because they were my friends.

didn't really feel that on a daily basis. My father was largely absent in my early years. He was always working so hard to support his large family. He was a sales manager and he traveled a lot. I remember seeing him at the family dinner table, being a part of our family talk, but I don't remember having a real relationship with him. Being part of a large family meant that his attention had to be shared with many others, divvied up like dividing a loaf of bread. I always knew that he loved me and would always be supportive of me, but I didn't have his attention a lot of the time.

My real relationship with my Dad came about sometime after I married and had children of my own. I don't know when it happened or why it happened, but sometime after my father retired, he re-made his life. Gradually, I began to notice that he was on the phone with my mother whenever I called up. When I visited him, he was truly grateful to see me. When he asked me questions about my life, he was really interested in what was happening to me. What I remember the most was the times when I'd call home with a problem, upset about something, and wanting some advice. What I remember is that he'd always say something supportive like, “You're smart, I know you'll make the right decision.”. He might give me vague advice, but mostly his answer was in the form of love and acceptance. During the times when I was truly upset, this acceptance, this unconditional love was the most wonderful gift that anyone ever gave me.


So, after he died and one of my sisters wrote an obituary about him, talking about his successful career in business, his love of golf, and his hobbies of painting and cooking, I felt kind of lukewarm about it when I read it. It said nothing to me of who he was. So, I said that. I said, can we tell about what a great father he was to all of us and to so many others? The sons in law and other relatives and the friends we'd bring home who needed love and acceptance- how he became a father to all of us. And my siblings agreed. That's what we re-wrote in his obituary.. How he loved, his generosity of spirit, his integrity- who he was- that's what we wrote.

Throughout these past few weeks, I've continued pondering what kind of life he led and what it means in death. What kind of life do you lead to have the kind of death that you would want? A kind of death when you have no real regrets, when people who loved you can honestly say that you gave them something of real value, that you were a person that people will remember.

Maria Shriver, the wife of the governor of California, experienced a mid-life crisis after she became First Lady of California, when she left her career as a television journalist. These kind of questions about the meaning of her life started swirling around in her head. All of sudden, her life seemed to be defined by her husband's career instead of about her own. She had always been a successful career person as well as a wife and mother. But when the recognition she had always received became centered around her role as a wife, instead of who she saw herself as, she felt that she had lost herself. This realization came crashing down on her when she was with her son in a shopping mall, and someone didn't recognize her. He asked her son if his mother was a model. He responded, “No, she's a housewife.” She was stunned that this is how her son saw her. When she tried to suggest to him that at the very least that she was First Lady of the state of California, he replied that it was his father that had gotten elected, not her.

Just like a ten year old. To tell the truth and devastate you.

So, Maria started some soul-searching. She entered a time of discernment. Was she supposed to go back to television? Was she supposed to write, to teach, to become the head of a non-profit agency? Who was she and what was her life supposed to be about? Somehow being a wife and mother seemed to be a definition about who she was to other people, not who she was to herself.

She contacted the networks to see if they would be interested in having her come back as a tv journalist. It turned out they were. They offered Maria a job coming back to anchor a news show. But then she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted.

Maria Shriver took some out for herself. She went away for a weekend all by herself. Many of us who have been parents of small children are very jealous of this- how could she have time to do this? But she decided that she had to. She had to take time to figure out for herself who she was and what this life was all about.

After her weekend away and many more weeks in intense contemplation, Maria came to a calm place that recognized that a lot of her struggle had to do with the huge expectations that her family had always placed on her. In the Kennedy family, you were expected to achieve in a big way and to serve the country as well. She said, “If you weren't doing, if you weren't serving, if you weren't accomplishing and accomplishing big, then you really weren't being. You weren't even seen.” She realized that so much of her life that been about proving herself to others. And she wasn't sure what she was to herself.

She remembered a Hopi prayer that she once read. It went like this:
We have been telling the people that this is the eleventh hour
Now we must go back and tell the people that this IS the hour.
Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
Who are you?
What are your relations?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.

Maria came to the realization that she had been trying to answer the question what did she want to do, when the true question is who did she want to be? She realized that her life was about who she was, not about what she was. She realized that we're all worthy of being loved just for being ourselves. That a certain job or a certain name doesn't define a person- that what matters is who she is for herself and the people who love her. She began to listen to her inner voice and what it was telling her about who she was.

One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, says in the poem, “When Death Comes”, that when she dies she wants to say that “I was a bride married to amazement, I was the bridge groom, taking the world into my arms.” She wants to be sure “if I have made of my life something particular, and real.” “I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.” For Oliver, it isn't about what she did in the world, but how she did it. With wonder and amazement.

And Kabir, the 16th century Sufi poet, says with his modern sounding wisdom, “If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.” I love the idea of making love with the divine- what would that be like? And what does it mean to use the life that we have now today, in the moment, to create the heaven that some people wait for until after they die?

For some people, the process of losing a parent brings close to home the idea of their own death. For me, it certainly became more real. If my Dad can die, then I can die. And I become the next in line. That's a scary thought. When death becomes more real, you start to imagine what would it mean to face your own death. You start to look at what you would leave behind in death.

So, when I think of my Dad and see how he lived his life, it makes it much clearer to me what life is about and how in his death, his life is extended by the way he lived. The people who were touched and changed by his life, continue on with the gifts that he gave them. His death was dignified by his legacy.

My son, Doug, participated in his funeral by reading a scriptural passage. When he was practicing this passage, he came to me and asked me if it mattered whether he believed what the Bible passage was saying, and whether he shouldn't read it. Such a UU without even knowing it! I said that he was honoring his grandfather by reading something that meant something to his grandfather. I told him how proud his grandfather was of who he was, what kind of person he was. Doug said that Pappa had influenced his life in such meaningful ways. My son understands clearly that the love and attention that he received from his grandfather has helped to shape him in becoming the confident and loving person he is. My father's life is certainly extended by his grandchildren's lives.

The Hopi poem that Maria Shriver found to be helpful asks these important questions that I find myself asking:

Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
Who are you?
What are your relations?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.