Tomorrow is our annual All Soul’s service of Healing and Anointing. It’s traditionally a smaller crowd of people who gather to share in the pain of loss. My homilies are generally not titled, and yet for this service, I find it necessary to title them. This year’s title is “So, now what”? and it’s aim is to those who have suffered a significant loss, have lived without that person in their lives and are wondering “now what”?
My dad died on the 12th of June and we are still, very much, in our first year of anniversaries and events where he’s not with us in person. It’s difficult. It sucks. And sometimes I simply boycott that event, like Father’s Day this year. Acknowledged it to my husband and my brother and that was it. I just couldn’t.
This year’s All Soul’s service will take on a whole new meaning for me. I’ve lived through significant losses, but never the loss of a parent…until this year. So my words are taking on a whole new level of understanding and, to be honest, a whole new level of stress. I want to be, I need to be, an authentic presence. And it was my dad who taught me that.
And so, when I gather with the few who are looking for answers that I can’t give them, I will draw strength from the One Who Created Us, Who Sustains Us and Who Loves Us, more than any other.
And that will be enough.
So, now what? Well, life. It will happen whether we are ready for it or not.
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