You could never have imagined this in your grief, when we shared our sorrows in the death of your husband and your son, my husband. In those days I had only begun to understand the power in the bonds of family and in the God you knew so well. I now know the Lord deeply and intimately, as if the Lord was my birth mother who laid me on her shoulder and rocked me to sleep.

I understand why so many parents devote endless hours to the perfect organic diets for their kids, why so many of us research endlessly where to send our kids to school, how to address their medical needs. On a very deep level we sense that when it comes to protecting our children’s lives, we are ultimately mostly powerless, adrift in a sea of powerful interests, in a world where profit is king and kids are another line on a national expense sheet.

I’m not yet sure what to do in a world without Walter. But I know what he’d do—he’d go back to the text. And what do you know? Just like Walter said it would, the Bible has resources for us to think about the crisis of this day.

How am I able to live this way? Because I know God is my strength and song.

I was decades old
Before I realized
The presence
Of the absence
Of women’s narratives,
Women’s stories,
Women’s voices
In the Lectionary,
In regular, weekly Christian worship.

A eulogy is different from many other words we share at a life-transition moment... It is a moment to reflect on the fullness of the person’s life, allowing others to have their experience of the departed.

By denying ourselves access to the halls of grief we also deny ourselves access to what is sacred, healing, and vital.