End of Life?

I seem to have reached an age where gathering with family and friends is prompted more

often by funerals than weddings, baptisms, or any of life’s other milestone celebrations. One

obvious difference between the funerals and the other celebrations is that the one we love is

no longer there to share it with us, another is that, despite a belief in life eternal, it is often

experienced as a part of ‘closure’ as much as a new beginning.

Photo Credit: Panyawat Auitpol

When asked by a friend recently whether we could do more as a community to prepare each

other for dying, I was struck by the two edged nature of the question – to prepare ourselves

for our own passing and to support each other when faced with the passing of someone we

love. Having come close to dying from a sudden critical illness that left me and my family no

time or space to ‘prepare’, the question of preparation and support is close to my heart.

I carry an image of my life as a ‘wave-form’ pattern in the world - the breath of my spirit

together with the body I have been gifted creating the wave of my life, rising, peaking and

subsiding, before stepping back and returning home to God with all my stories, big and

small. As my spirit heads home and the particles of my body disperse back into our material

world, all my links and connections, memories and relationships will ripple out for a time as

the fading energy of the life we shared.

Photo Credit: Josh Marshall on Unsplash

For me, the issue of preparation is three-fold: preparing for my bodily ending, preparing for

my spirit’s onward travel and preparing others for my passing.

One approach for our bodies is the ‘bucket list’ - ticking off the things I want to do before I

die: a special experience, a place to visit, a commitment to telling those I love that I love

them! And not leaving it too late. Or ‘future proofing’ - focused on health, fitness and shaping our living space to accommodate changing capacities.

In the spirit landscape of my life there is another kind of preparation. Creating spaces where

that in me which came from God is allowed to spend time reflecting on home, gazing back to the heart of where I came from. I notice the growing importance of quiet times and spaces in this part of my journey – the Holy Space of our Benedictine spirituality, epitomized in sitting alone in an empty church, reading the God-centered, question-filled poetry of R S Thomas. Preparing for our own or each other’s passing is rooted in being open to talking about it.

Kevin Olson on Unsplash

Encouraging people to think about and plan for their own funeral, whether they are well or

sitting with a terminal diagnosis. I stay open to talking about how it was to lose my parents or

others dear to me, and the joy of remembering them as a part of keeping their ripple alive in

the world. I talk about the privilege of being present with loved ones as they passed, letting

them know how we were holding them with open arms* until they were ready to step across

into the arms of loved ones who had gone before.

As an expression of our Benedictine community and service, I would welcome the chance to

sit together in a space where the pain and practicalities of leaving this world meet our

openness to the joy of the next, in support of each other in this place of endings and

beginnings. If you think you might like to spend a day together exploring these themes then

please let us know via an email to info@LCSB.uk and if there is sufficient interest, we can

plan from there.

Geoff O'Donoghue

2025

* Stephen Jenkinson: Griefwalker.