In Theory: Learning to say goodbye

CNN published an article this week about the ways families are learning to say goodbye to a terminaly ill loved one. The article stated, “After learning that death is nearing, some people avoid talking about the inevitable. Others have the opposite reaction. They accept their looming death and make extensive plans of what kind of flowers they want at the funeral and who should take care of their pets.”

What kind of lessons does your faith provide which teach families ways to say goodbye to a dying loved one?

Our counsel about saying goodbye isn’t really specific to Anglicanism, or even to Christianity. Usually our care during these times is more practical and pastoral than it is spiritual; so we give similar advice to what you’d hear anywhere else:

If at all possible, both the one dying and the ones who will live should say the things you need to say: Say I love you, say Thank you, and say I’m sorry. These are the things that will haunt you, if you leave them unsaid until it’s too late to say them.

Hear the stories that only this person can tell. Ask what they’ve learned in life, and what they’re learning now. The great irony is that death is an excellent teacher about life. If they can handle it, ask the super-deep, meaning-of-life questions.

There’s no right way to say Goodbye. Both the person dying and those around them, ultimately, will handle it however they handle it. Some will resist, deny and ignore the reality of death right up till the final breath; some will be able to face it fully; many can handle honest talk in small doses, then need to turn to small talk and laughter and normalcy.

What’s important to remember is that how each person copes is how they cope. You can try for whatever you think is the healthy approach, but if someone else needs something different, then they need something different, period, and you can’t take that away from them.

Few of us can change our stripes just because death has entered the scene — the strong silent types will not suddenly want to chat about their feelings; the ones who always joke things away will joke death away too. We die how we lived, pretty much; which is kinda beautiful, really. There are truths about us which even death cannot rob.