Note: This post is extremely long after the jump. I’ve broken it out into sections. It’s a compilation of thoughts after losing a dear friend to late-detected, aggressive liver cancer. She’s the first friend (non-family member) I’ve ever lost to death.

This week has been a rather trying week. On the same day that my husband was admitted to the hospital for a nasty Staph infection, I learned that my friend and talented hairstylist Stephanie was in the process of dying and by the afternoon, had passed away.

I’m very much in shock over learning of her death as it was only last week that she called me and weakly told me that they had just released her from the hospital and that she’d get better soon. Never did I think that would be the last time I would speak to her. I just figured I’d text her again this week to see how she’s doing. Although Steph had beaten breast cancer earlier this year in February, she developed liver cancer that went undetected in the interim—and it rapidly progressed to the point where there was nothing the doctors could do.

Sometimes, death is so sudden and comes without a warning. One part of my brain has accepted the news of her death as a fact. The other part of my brain (or perhaps, my heart, really) keeps saying, “No way. Nope. She’s not dead. This is all just an illusion and she’s at home and she’ll be fine. She’ll bounce back. That’s what she did before and it’s what she’ll do again. In no time, I’ll be sitting in her chair and we’ll be chatting up the latest movies and music.”

I think of all the close people in my life who have passed away: my uncle, my father, my husband’s grandfather, and now my dear friend. In each instance, I either saw or spoke to the person shortly before the person died. In one of those instances, I prepped myself, but I was still young and the news came to me as a shock regardless.

Believe it or not, my favorite verse in dealing with death is John 11:35 in which the Bible says, “Jesus wept.” Two simple words. How can they be so powerful?

I am reminded that even though Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead in a matter of minutes, in his humanity, Jesus felt the pain of death at that moment. The irreversible effects of the Fall may have weighed heavily on Jesus as he reflected that death isn’t the natural order of things. Death isn’t supposed to happen. The god-man knew that death was never what God originally intended for man to experience. Because while death takes the life of loved ones, death on this side of heaven doesn’t have the most impact on the person dying; death has the most impact on the people who are left behind as a result of the person’s passing.

Death is a cruel thing to wrestle with. One minute a person is here in our lives, impacting us, shaping us, affecting us; the next moment, the person is gone, life extinguished from the body, never to speak, embrace, or breathe again.

Think of major catastrophic events that have occurred throughout U.S. history: September 11, the 2011 occurrence of devastating tornadoes in the Midwest (namely Missouri), Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City, Hurricane Katrina, even the 1989 World Series Earthquake. All of these pretty much came out of the blue with little to no warning. Even with hurricane warnings for Katrina, no one could have foreseen the impact that it would have had on the levees that broke. One minute people were fine. The next, they were not; some were injured, some were homeless, and some had died. While I don’t have any scientific proof, human brains tend to process things gradually. That’s why we like “transitions.” It provides an appropriate smooth shift from one thing to another in which without that shift, the change in events would be jarring.

Death is its own form of personal catastrophe to the people it impacts. Each and every single time. It is not natural and it shouldn’t happen. Jesus knew this. That’s why he cried before he raised Lazarus from the dead. I used to think it was merely an example from Jesus giving humans permission to grieve over a loved one. The older I get, the more I realize “Jesus wept” for real. That hurt was real and deep. Jesus raised Lazarus as an example, but Jesus also knew that this was temporary. Lazarus would die again. And his death would be much more semi-permanent.

I may have a funeral this weekend to go to in which I say goodbye to Steph’s body. Perhaps I’ll be able to say hello to her again at another point. Continue reading “Thoughts on Death and Other Life Lessons” →