Ministry on death

Jeffery Smith considers our preparation for death

Last year my friend, a Quaker, was admitted to hospital and it soon seemed likely that he would die. I visited him hoping, at best, to give comfort. Unlike others, I do not have any detailed idea of an afterlife or how it might happen. Even if we had such a picture as presented by the Bible, I could not see how to invoke blessings on him. Nor did I suspect choice readings from the Bible would especially help.

He had seen and been affected by life in many of its positive and many of its negative aspects. He had overcome greater difficulties in life than I had. I looked in Quaker faith & practice and there seemed to be more on bereavement than dying. I thought this not entirely surprising, since we tend to keep in this book the best ways of living life.

So, I felt in something of an existentialist crisis. What could I say? Would direct dialogue be possible in terms of relating to his situation?

In effect, I let him decide. It seemed to me that the key thing was to get him to speak to me and, more importantly, within himself. In my amateurish way, I have come to accept Carl Jung’s view that a ‘healthy’ psyche is self-regulating. So, it was necessary for me to encourage him to review his existence.

I asked if there was anything on his mind. He was in a quiet ward so he could speak. He recalled a terrifying experience in his family life one Christmas during his adolescence. It seemed as if he still felt some responsibility for this. He spoke of other complex incidents in his life, then and in subsequent visits. Later, he was moved to a busy ward and the man in the next bed wanted to join in our conversation. He seemed to think we were talking of life in a far off country, once a British colony. This did not seem a useful tack and that conversation had to be curtailed! But, broadly, I think my friend had spent his time in his hospital bed reviewing his life and becoming at ease with himself.

I had to be away for a time and so said so. He was happy for me. As we parted he cuddled himself up in his hospital bed almost as a child would, smiling the utmost of happy smiles. Two weeks later in a hotel room, in another country, I got a telephone call saying he had died. He certainly lives on in my mind. And somehow it seems as if he is now part of a greater consciousness based on love.

Mine was a somewhat last minute effort to ease someone as his or her death approached. It occurs to me we could try to prepare our minds for death sooner than the last few days. Can we do this? Meetings for Clearness?

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