It feels strange to think about death on a day like today, when the sugar maple in our backyard is at the peak of its red-orange glory. It’s the time of year when I almost can’t pass by the family room window without stopping for a moment to gaze at that tree and give thanks for how alive that thrill of bold color makes me feel.
And yet, whenever I do stop, I see that those beautiful leaves are falling, one by one. It won’t be long before the branches are bare. This is the way, and I can not change it.
It is November 2nd, All Souls’ Day, and I have recently come from a Mass where the readings were about facing the reality of death, trusting in God’s infinite mercy, and praying for people who have already passed on into the next life.
It is good, indeed, to remember as we move closer to winter that we all have a limit on how long we can stay and adorn the world with our colors. At some point everyone has to let go of the branch. Sometimes, like for these gorgeous maple leaves that show no sign of withering, or for my mother whose laughter I wish my children could have still had the chance to hear, it seems too soon.
But while we can’t control or even know the hour of death for a loved one or for ourselves, here’s what we can do: choose to stay connected to the branches and roots that nourish us, and keep turning our faces toward the sun, soaking it up every chance we get, so that we shine as brightly as we can before winter comes. Pretending to be an evergreen won’t do any of us any good.
Today I’d like to re-post (with just a few very minor wording changes) a brief reflection I wrote on another All Souls’ Day, several years before I had this blog, when my only public writing outlet was Facebook. It was November 2nd, 2016, and a roller coaster of a week was in store for me with the World Series and the presidential election, but on November 2nd I was still in a state of calm, just reflecting on the three days I call the "Fall Triduum"--Halloween and the two holy days that follow it-- and why they fit so well together. Here is that reflection again.
(Note: 2016 was three years before my mother died, which is why she isn’t included in the original post or the photo I had used with it, but since she is an important part of All Souls’ Day for me now, I have included a picture of her above.)
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(published on Facebook, 11/2/2016)
I’ve been thinking about the psychology of the three days at the corner between October and November. Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. All around us the earth is beginning to enter its annual time of dying. So it's a good time to reflect on our own mortality, and what we believe about it, as these three days each in their own way encourage us to do.
The prevailing notion in our society seems to be that thinking about death is depressing and pointless. But the Catholic liturgical year, which sets two holy days immediately after the secular holiday of Halloween to form a sort of fall triduum, invites me to see it another way—that remembering life’s shortness and unpredictability can bring me gratitude, humility, and a reorientation to what there is in my life that is truly of value.
If you’ve read this far, I invite you to push on and think through the progression with me. (Or just skip to the end for the three-sentence version.)
It starts on October 31 with the fake horrors of Halloween, where we humans are in full control of the scariness; death is a caricature or a plaything.
The next day, All Saints’, shifts our eyes upward with the stories of holy men and women who have gone before us. Their lives are inspiring and exciting to think about but somewhat remote. We did not know these people personally.
Most of us picture the saints looking kindly down from faraway Heaven; we might reach out to them and ask them to pray for us and guide us; but it is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that they were once normal people like ourselves who ate breakfast, got colds during the wintertime and laughed at silly jokes. The deaths we hear and think about on All Saints’ Day, even though some were quite gruesome, feel safely confined to the pages of books.
Then we hit the cold, hard stone of November 2nd, All Souls’ Day. Here death is real; it has taken from us people we love; and it will someday take us too. Whether that will be the story’s end or simply the beginning of Volume II, my beliefs and yours may differ. But the fact of death is indisputable for us both. As is the fact that its timing is to a large extent beyond our control.
All Souls’ Day is normally a day of peaceful gratitude for me, of remembering my grandmother Lillian and my grandfathers Inge and Tore, feeling wrapped as in a blanket by the love I received from each of them when they lived on this earth.
But this year’s All Souls was a more somber one than usual for me, as I recall two younger souls whose unexpected deaths occurred within a few weeks of each other this past spring. The first was someone my own age, whom I knew from my summers in Jordan during college. He had the kind of presence and personality one doesn’t easily forget, and his life seemed to be on a trajectory of success that was a source of great pride to the small village where he grew up and where I had met him. Though I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years, I was quite shaken by the news of his death.
The second was a friend’s two-year-old daughter. Her memorial service was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. The mother walking down the aisle dressed in black, her beautiful face ashen gray. The large group of children gathering on the floor near the altar, looking up at the pictures of their sister and friend. Even for this couple who I know are armed with a strong faith in God, this just doesn’t make sense.
These grieving families, along with innumerable others throughout the world, don’t have the luxury of just reflecting on death once a year during the fall. They’re walking in its shadow every day, living in a more stripped-down reality where they can see with painful clarity what most of us can’t.
The scariness of Halloween may not be real, but here’s something that is. Ask any saint and they’d tell you—we do not know the number of our days. So we’d better live them well.
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