An Unfinished Life

Confronting death is never an easy matter, no matter how old or young the person who dies is. No matter what, we will all have to confront death at some point or another in our lives. And when someone famous passes away collective grief and mourning begins.

The first time I really confronted death was less than a year after graduating high school. I was barely 19 years old when I learned that a childhood classmate whom I’d known since the 2nd grade passed away suddenly. Here we all were ready to begin our lives, but on that day we were confronted by the end of hers.

As we sat in the church in an unexpected class reunion, shock overwhelmed our senses. All I can recall was the reprise of “Goin’ up Yonder.” A song I had heard before that somehow was supposed to bring comfort at the idea that she and one day we would be “goin’ up Yonder...to be with my Lord.”

To a 19-year-old, these words didn't bring any comfort but only pulled me into the depths of contemplation as I began to process the fragility and brevity of life. Not knowing how to fully process her death, I cried, hugged classmates, said my goodbyes and promptly returned to campus, pushing down my emotions and feelings.

At 19 death seemed reserved for those who had lived a ripe old age. I’d heard people read Psalm 90:10 where they proclaimed we were promised at least 70 or so years. 

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures…” Psalm 90:10a

Rarely had I heard the passage quoted in the context of the verses before or after. Yet when confronted by death I found myself going to the passage and reading it in full. In doing so I realize that the Psalm is there to remind us of the fragility of life more than is about a promise for a certain number of years.

The psalmist recognizes that we live in a world where we will experience affliction, and at some point, our lives will come to an end. Yet knowing this the psalmist still cries out to God to:

“Teach number our days so that we can gain wisdom. Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”

 - Psalms 90:12-15

We cannot go through life without confronting death. Something, which for the most part—

especially in America—we don’t reflect much on. We’ve learned how to avoid it, rush through it, and in many ways lie to ourselves, believing that it will escape us. And so we don’t number our days and recognize the precious gift of the present. We don’t seek to be satisfied by God but satisfied by whatever seems to consume us in the moment. We end up with little joy and consumed by sadness with no gladness to be found. 

The irony of this passage is that the psalmist doesn’t mince words as he asks to be made glad for as many days as he’s been afflicted. He recognizes the tensions that exist in life that often make it difficult to have joy, to be made glad, and to have a reason to rejoice. When we pause to reflect on the fragility of life, it allows us to savor each day as though it was the first and the last—gaining wisdom and insight along the way.

At the beginning of this decade I sat and thought about all the people and loved ones I said goodbye to over the last ten years:

The friends and peers who were younger than me. 

The children who just began to see themselves for themselves.

Family members near and far.

Fathers and mothers leaving behind mothers and fathers and sons and daughters.

Those who reached that ripe old age and said their goodbyes.

Those taken suddenly and those we watched fade away quickly before our eyes.

Parents bidding adieu to their children.

Sisters and brothers letting go of brothers and sisters.

And with each memory, as I saw each person's face, my heart grew heavy recalling that they were no longer here. No longer near. And for so many of them I had to fight the thought that kept coming to my mind: Gone too soon. Theirs was an unfinished life cut short.

But then I found myself recalling how in 2015 I was asked to deliver a eulogy for a friend who passed away suddenly in her early 30s. It was the first time that I would have to say something about someone younger than me passing away and try to help folks begin to process their grief. But I found myself angry and upset at God. Thinking about how she had made peace with so much and was choosing to live life with a new vigor and excitement.

I didn’t know how to begin. Procrastinating as always, I found myself watching the movie An Unfinished Life. It was as I watched the movie that I was reminded that it wasn’t my friend’s life that was unfinished, but mine.

When we encounter death, it causes us to recognize that are days are numbered. And if we do not allow ourselves to linger in that moment long enough, we’ll skip the most important lesson there is to learn when we confront death. Which is: death has not come for those alive just yet.

As I watch and see so many mourn and ask why and think of the unfinished lives, I thought I'd share a snippet from that friend’s memorial service in hopes that it helps us all as we collectively grieve. In hopes that we do give space for grief and mourning so we don’t rush pass the process. And that it also remind us to live our own unfinished lives.

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November 2015- Delivered at Weslie Sharice’s CA Memorial service.

A few weeks ago a movie showed up on my recommended list.  An Unfinished Life starring Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Lopez. The movie is 10 years old but I’ll still try not to spoil the ending. The plot of the movie is about a young man who dies in the prime of his life, leaving his father (Robert Redford) and his son’s wife (Jennifer Lopez) behind. The father blames and shames his son’s wife for the death. 

Redford plays the role of a man angered, upset and stuck in that place of bitterness and frustration, over what he perceives to be his son’s unfinished life. When I first begin to watch this movie I though mmm that’s sad the son’s life was unfinished. And when many of us got the news that Wes passed away we stood in utter disbelief.  While we all know that death is a natural part of life, it’s never a part we necessarily look for or look forward to. And when it comes it often leaves each of us cycling through our own stages of grief from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance.  And sometimes we’ll cycling through different parts of those stages until we get to acceptance. And during those times of cycling it is easy to feel to believe like the character in the movie that this was an unfinished life.

But before Wes left California, she did what most people do when they leave one season to begin another. She prepared.  She prepared to close this chapter, to say good-bye, to ask for forgiveness, to forgive, to tell people how much they meant to her and to hear how much her California Dreaming Smile would be missed. Wes got rid of things weighing her down like the physical things accumulated over the years that couldn’t go and the emotional weight of somethings that need to be let go.

In that movie I started to see how it was those left behind who each had stopped living in their own way who had an unfinished life. Beloved we still have breath to breathe and that tells me we still have life yet to live. Wes was a lover and learning of life as a friend of hers said. And in spite of good or bad times Wes chose life. To take risks, to live fully, to be merry with those in her life. We mourn today because she lived fully and her life impacted us in so many ways.

And we must ask ourselves how will we choose to live our unfinished lives. Wes would want us to live life fully. She will defiantly be missed and her absence felt. Her legacy of joy, laughter, compassion, kindness, and love lives on in our memories. A part of her is with us in the ways she impacted each of us. And it is us here who write the epilogue of her life story, with our memories and our the lives we choose to keep living.

What I knew about Wes is she would want us to learn to enjoy the season and time we have left on earth. To live fully with no regrets, until it is our time to be present with the Lord.

I pray that we Come Alive like as Wes admonished us to do in a poem her mother posted on FB.

Note to Self By Weslie Abraham

COME ALIVE! 

And never die again. The world needs your beauty, your zest, your grin.

The femininity that drips from your fingertips and flows from your lips,

Like honey that's pure; they need your allure.

Cause nobody does it like you girl!

...Or excuse me, I mean woman; you've earned that

Applause for your pain, you at least deserve that

Tears you thought were in vain, I've heard that.

Wolf in sheep's gear; you now discern that.

You've learned that.

Pat yourself on the back, and

COME ALIVE!

I know it hurt you, but look; you survived!

You face each day with boldness & pride

The world sees you laugh; only you know you cry

So lift up your head and brighten your eyes

Don't shrink back, but reclaim your stride.

For woman's sake,

COME ALIVE! COME ALIVE!

And stand tall, in high gear, chin up, with no fear.

Move forward, no stopping, yourself revere.

Even if no one else does. You don't need it.

Your message is needed even if no one heeds it.

You've got a story to tell; please speak it.

Don't tweak it. 

We need what you have and only you have it

Men have come and they've tried to grab it

On their way out, but you still grasp it

So cling to it, protect it

Fight for it, don't neglect it.

And for the world's sake...

COME ALIVE!

Beloved Wes Came Alive and it’s evident in her impact on us.  And I pray we do as well, because as long as we have breath to breathe we have an unfinished life to live.

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When we try to cheat death or pretend that death will not darken our door, we lose our perspective on life entirely. But if we choose instead to grapple with the tension, we can begin number our days knowing our life isn’t unfinished until it is. It’s only when we hold these tensions in tandem that we can confront death and choose life. In doing so it doesn’t minimize the pain as we mourn. In many ways in can make it harder. Yet it somehow enlargers our perspective as we continue with each breathe that we live.