My God questions about the healing process of Leroy's passing. Part 3

Here is the last paper I had to write for my class at Luther Seminary. Hope you like what you read.

My brother passed away on January 12, 2008 from a tragic car accident. Being able to remember Leroy’s memories in my heart and being able to share those memories with family has helped my family and I grieve through this tragic event. On September 14, 2008 something happened to me that really made me think that Leroy was in heaven with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that everything was going to be alright. My wife and I were out for dinner and we were pulling into our driveway at our house. I noticed something above our doorway. We pulled into our garage and I got out of the car to take a look at what I saw. There it was! A white dove above my doorway. This was the exact day of Leroy’s birthday.

     Here is why the white dove is significant to my story. As part of Leroy’s funeral my sister-in-law’s aunt wanted to have three white doves released at his funeral. My sister-in-law Jenny and their two children Hailyn and Isaac were asked to help release the white doves. At that time of my brother’s funeral I wondered why she wanted to do this. As time passed I realized a couple things about the release of the white doves. What a great way of remembering Jesus Christ and His baptism and that we are baptized into His death. “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into His death. We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”[1] Someone else told me that white doves are superior flyers and have a very well developed homing instinct, and will fly great distances to return home when released. The release of the doves was a good visual for me after the fact of being able to let go of the dove and start letting go of Leroy and start the grieving process. I also talked to a good friend of mine who is a full blooded Cherokee and lives in the Cherokee Nation reservation in Oklahoma about what happened the night of Leroy’s birthday. He told me that in Cherokee culture representations of the Creator’s comfort for them comes to them in forms of creation, such as a dove, etc. This gave me great comfort knowing that Leroy was in heaven with God. This moment was a turning point for me knowing everything was going to be alright.

 Prior to seeing the white dove in September I was lamenting the loss of Leroy very much. Wondering what next? How do I move on? Scripture, music and talking with my wife Rhea were vital to my lamenting and me being able to let go of the harsh pain and hurt I felt. This is what helped me through my grief and lament. Psalm 40, Job 19 and Romans 6 were so important to me. I read them more than 1,000 times over and over.

I have no problems remembering the good times and memories I had with Leroy. That is what helped me in lamenting his loss. “God receives us as we are, and how we are is no surprise to God.”[2] The sentence from Suchocki’s book is so true. There is nothing that can separate me from the love of God. God knows all our little quarks and God knows it, loves it and loves us. 

God has had a hand on my shoulder all along saying everything is going to be okay. I still lament in the loss of my brother, Leroy, and nothing will ever change that. I will always have the memories of Leroy in my heart and I have my family to talk and laugh with but I also have a God that is with me and will pull me from the muck in my life. I have a God that feels my pain and walks with me side by side.

From Leroy’s death till today the dove was a sign sent from the Creator showing my brother’s reception into heaven and God and Leroy letting me know that he was okay; my wife Rhea being a listening and caring ear for me and her amazing love for me, my family and her faith, scripture and music being a big part of me helped lament the death of Leroy. These things helped me grieve, lament and move forward in this whole process. When the day of resurrection comes I will be able to see Leroy again and we can rejoice together. 

     

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[1] Occasional Services, Burial of the Dead, Augsburg Fortress Publishing, 2005, p. 113

[2] Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence, (Chalice Press, 1996), p. 38

My God questions about the healing process of Leroy's passing. Part 2

     Here is part two of the paper I wrote for seminary in my God, Evil and Suffering class. I am glad that I chose to talk about my brother's passing because it has helped me to put my thoughts on paper. 

     The blame game is what my family and I were playing with the death of my brother Leroy. We were trying to find a place to put the blame and God was it. God was to blame? My mom kept asking why God would take my brother. The word take is kind of harsh. Especially when we have a God that sent his one and only son to walk among us, live among us, and feel our humanity with us on earth. I don’t think God takes people from us. I don’t think God sits in heaven contemplating who am I going to take now. Am I going to take this infant or this young man? Having Leroy part from us was not an action from God.  Whether the accident was a natural evil where the road was slippery that made the car lose control and hit a pole or a moral evil in which my brother chose to drink and drive. (The drinking and driving idea was not a true statement just an example of a moral evil.)  I needed to be able to articulate this to my mom, my family, and myself. We have an all knowing, powerful God and God knows us. In Psalm 34: 17 – 18 it says:

“The righteous cry out, and the

LORD hears them; he delivers them

from all their troubles. The LORD is

close to the brokenhearted and saves

those who are crushed in spirit.”

Our spirits were certainly crushed but not fully taken away from us. We were all crying out for our Lord to help guide and deliver us from this evil.  

God created us to feel all the emotions a human can feel. “God knows my situation, better than I know myself. And knowing my situation, better than I know myself. And knowing my situation-my agony, my pain, my fear-God touches me where I am, offering me what forms of transformation are possible even in my dire circumstances. It may not look like much to me in terms of what I wish God could give me-but because God’s touch meets my condition, it offers hope.”[1] From having heard the news of Leroy passing that Saturday morning to actually flying down to Texas to be with my family I had time to think, read scripture, and pray. How am I going to console my family and myself? I am the one who serves in a congregation and I am the one who is trained for if situations arise like this in my context. But this was more personal. It was happening to me. I needed the strength, wisdom, guidance and love from God to be able to move forward. The words of Psalm 13 came into my head while I was driving from Houston to Seguin.

“How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and

day after day have sorrow in my heart?

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices

in your salvation. I will sing the LORD’s praise,

for he has been good to me.” (Psalm 13)

Thinking about Psalm 13 it was hard for me to think about my heart rejoicing and even my mom’s heart rejoicing because we were all hurting deep inside. How long, Lord will our hearts ache? How long Lord must I wrestle with my thoughts? As we drove from Houston to Seguin my family and I started singing in our rental car. We started singing silly songs, vacation bible school songs, worship songs, and secular songs. Singing was good for me. I have a huge love for music and especially good worship music. Worship music at times soothes my soul and makes me feel closer to God. This was one of those times. My girls and wife were helping me with my grieving process while we were singing and they probably did not know it. God was using my wife and girls to help me in my grieving process.      

Being able to sing worship music and remembering Psalm 13 and other verses helped me in my grieving process. It also helped me process how to help my family in their grieving process. I could never explain in words how I felt when I got the news about my brother. Until I read the words in Suchocki’s book and those were the words that I needed to describe what I was feeling. “Sometimes I have an image of beating my fist against the chest of God, sobbing like a comfortless child.”[2] That is what I felt like. A child in my fathers arms sobbing uncontrollably and pounding my fist on his chest. I am sure that is what my mother was feeling. She had anger towards God. Why my son?

My mom having anger towards God was okay. Being able to have anger and rage toward God is okay. “To be human is to experience the full range of emotions, whether anger, outrage, despair, depression, grief, impatience, pain, cynicism, jadedness, hopelessness, unbelief. And being human, we experience each of these emotions to some degree at some point in our lives, as well as those happier emotions we may feel freer to name as our own”[3] I don’t think God takes our rage or anger personal and punishes us for it later in our life. Our hearts were troubled. We were trying to find answers. Scripture was a big influence in my grieving process. I read as much as I could and looked for guidance and wisdom from God.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God;

believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms;

if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going

there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare

a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with

me that you also may be where I am. You know the way

to the place where I am going.” (John 14: 1 – 4)

            We have no problems remembering the good times we had with Leroy. Being able to have Leroy’s memories in our hearts and being able to share those memories and have family around us is what helped us grieve through this tragic event. That is what was going to help us grieve his loss. We knew for sure that Leroy was in heaven. When that day of resurrection comes we will be able to see Leroy again. “God receives us as we are, and how we are is no surprise to God.”[4] The sentence from Suchocki’s book is so true. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. God knows all our little quarks and God knows it and loves it.  

I was asked to perform the funeral for Leroy by his wife Jenny. I said of course. That was probably one of the hardest things that I have had to do in my life. My emotions were going up and down. Before the funeral started, I went into a quiet room and prayed. I prayed for comfort, guidance, healing and the words of Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains where does

my help come from? My help comes from the

LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121)

After closing my eyes, praying and asking God for guidance I felt a sense of calmness. I had a feeling that God had a hand on my shoulder saying everything is going to be okay. As I was reading one of the prayers in the occasional services book I was reminded of something important both in the prayer and in Romans 6. “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”[5]

Having to perform my brother’s funeral was one of the hardest things I have done in my life. It also helped in my questioning God about why. My family and I still hurt about the loss of my brother. We have the memories of Leroy in our hearts and we have each other as a family but we also have a God that is with us and pulls us from the muck in our life. We have a God that feels our pain and walks with us side by side even when we think God is not present. We also have the promise of the resurrection that one day we will be able to see Leroy. Scripture has been a big influence in my grieving process to heal and to help my family’s healing process.  

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[1] Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence, (Chalice Press, 1996), p. 25-26

[2] Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence, (Chalice Press, 1996), p. 38

[3] Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence, (Chalice Press, 1996), p. 37

[4] Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence, (Chalice Press, 1996), p. 38

[5] Occasional Services, Burial of the Dead, Augsburg Fortress Publishing, 2005, p. 113

My God Questions about the healing process of Leroy's passing. Part 1

      I am taking a class at Luther Seminary called God, Evil and Suffering. Part of our class was to write about something in our life that we had to grieve and lament and process through. I chose to talk about the passing of my younger brother Leroy. This is part 1 of 3 papers I wrote. I wanted to share this because it has been a good process for me in really thinking about the healing process I have been going through. 

     It was an early Saturday morning about two years ago when my cell phone rang. It was weird because my mom never calls me early, especially on a Saturday morning. When I answered the phone I can hear her wailing on the other side of the phone. She was trying to tell me something but I could not make out what she was trying to tell me. My step dad took the phone from her and told me the shell shocking news. Your brother Leroy was killed in a car accident early this morning. At first I was in shock like I did not hear him or if he was playing with me and I said what? My stepdad told me again. Your brother was killed in a car accident this morning. Sorry mijo. I am so sorry mijo. I can hear the pain in my stepdad’s voice as he told me. I can also hear my mom in the background and the pain she is going through at that moment. I was in shock. Then it sank in that my brother died. My brother, who was four years younger than I, was married and had two beautiful children, was gone. I cried. I balled my eyes out. My wife was wondering what happened and I told her. She cried with me and helped comfort me in my pain. My children, Grace and Trinity, wondered what was going on. We told them what happened. I instantly had so many questions going on in my head. Why Leroy? What was he doing up so early? Where was he going? Where was he coming from? What is going to happen with Jenny, Hailyn and Isaac? I wanted so badly to call Jenny and see how she was doing. I was sure she had many other things to worry about, not to mention breaking the news to my niece and nephew.

I called my older sister Denise and talked with her. She had her own God questions about my brothers passing.  Why would God take Leroy? Why did he deserve to die? Why is it that we have a God and He lets this happens? I sat on the phone as she asked these questions. I had the same questions in my own head floating around.

Later on I called my mom to see how she was doing. My mom talks to me in Spanglish. A combination of English and Spanish. My mom starts talking to me in English but ends the conversation in Spanish or vice versa. We talked on the phone and she had the same questions for me as my sister. Por que mi hijo? (Why my son?) Por que mi buffy? (Why my Buffy?) Buffy was my brother Leroy’s nick name. Por que llevaria Dios a mi hijo? (Why would God take my son?)   

So here I am a person who serves in a church and this is something I have never dealt with. I have been to funerals and been at the bedsides of ill people but I was not ready for this to happen so close to me. This was my brother. How am I supposed to act? How am I suppose to comfort my mom, sister and family when I am hurting myself? This was a big test for me. Only being able to hear the pain and suffering that my family was going through on the phone.  I was at a point in which I was questioning God for His actions. That was wrong of me because it was not God’s actions but the actions of my brother and whatever happened to make the accident happen. Here I am a leader in the church and now it’s my turn to be the person who is trained and educated to deal with God, Evil and Suffering of the death of Leroy.

I wanted so much to blame God! I was hurting. In a sense I still do because it was my brother whom I loved and talked with the night before he was gone forever. It was the last time I told him that I loved him.  He was going to be gone from our lives. Leroy was not going to see his son grow up to be a young man, put on a uniform and play baseball or soccer or see his daughter have her Quinceanera, watch her graduate from high school or walk her down the wedding aisle.  That hurt me and it sometimes still stings.

There are many layers to this accident that killed my brother Leroy that early Saturday morning. I am glad to have been able to be the strong one for my family and be the one they leaned on.  Whether I had the right answers for them or not being there was important. My wife was instrumental in my dealing with the grief of losing my brother. She is such a rock in my life and glad we share the same faith.  We can grieve together and talk about things openly when the time is right.

Throughout this paper you will see how I was able to grieve and deal with the God, Evil and Suffering I went through in the death of my brother but also the God, Evil and Suffering with my family. Being there and walking with them side by side.