Love is stronger than death

I've been thinking about death, dying, and grief today. Actually, that's funny. I've been thinking about these things for the entire month of June.

Yesterday was the 11-year anniversary of my mom's death. As I do every year, many of the days in June are marked by certain key memories. The 8th is the day she went into the hospital for the last time; the 22nd is the day she came home. So many little markers of "lasts" in the days of June. It is really hard to believe it has been 11 years. This year, I marked it in what has become my traditional way: strawberry daiquiris. That was her drink of choice the couple of times a year she would actually drink. It's not really what I would choose, but it helps me to feel close to her.

I'm actually not just thinking about my own grief this year. Through the magic of Facebook, I was reminded that six years ago today, a friend I've known since high school lost his wife. I tend to think that my mom was too young to die (56), but Maggie was about 30 years younger, and she left behind 2 young sons.

Her husband is a witness in my life (and, if his Facebook friends are any indication, in other lives) of one of the central truths at the heart of Christianity, shown to us first in the resurrection, but again and again in the lives of the holy and faithful: love is stronger than death. It is a mystery that is beyond our mortal minds, but we know it in our hearts. The last couple of days, I've said it again and again in my mind, like Dorothy clicking her shoes together saying "There's no place like home": love is stronger than death, love is stronger than death, love is stronger than death.

I've also had a song in my head that I used to have on a bunch of mixed tapes (yes, I'm old) but I've never bothered to track down since my musical life has gone digital. It's a Bruce Cockburn song called "Festival of Friends." The lyric in my head is this one: "Some of us live and some of us die, and some day God's going to tell us why...." I go back and forth between a hope that somehow God will be able to give an account of what so often seems like stolen years and a shock at the arrogance of thinking that we might get to demand such an account. Of course, my other realization is that the whole lyric is a lie, because we all die eventually, but perhaps there is hope even in that.

Writing this has reminded me of another song, which I encountered on an album of David Wilcox's, but which was written by Bob Franke. It's called "For Real." After several rather poignant love stories (not all romantic) that draw a contrast between loving each other forever and for real, he sings this: "Some say God is a lover, some say it's an endless void, some say both, some say she's angry, some say just annoyed. But if God felt a hammer in the palm of his hand, then God knows the way we feel. And then love lasts forever, forever AND for real." (I think you can listen here, at least to a bit of it.)

In the moments when the hole left by love lost seems huge and overwhelming, these things help me cling at once to the loss and to the hope that love is forever, for real, and so much stronger than darkness, grief, and death.