November 2024:

Life, Death, and Everything in Between

As a rabbi in the position of community chaplain I see death, sickness and grief as often as I see birth, healing, and joy. I officiate as many funerals as I do weddings. I get to be with people during some of the most important and transformative times of their lives. I use my personal and professional experience and years of education to help facilitate these important life cycle events. This summer I officiated 5 weddings and 4 funerals. Last week I visited the hospital to counsel several sick patients and to welcome into the world my twin niece and nephew. In each experience I came alongside a different family amid profound change.

Last week I joined my co-facilitators, JFCS’s Missy Fry and Doug Ruth, whom are both Licensed Clinical Social Workers, and I ended the 8-week run of the grief group, Walking Beside You. This group was specifically for people who have lost their spouses. The people who attended have all had their lives changed beyond measure. They found deep comfort in each other, comfort in the fact that others had survived the same kind of loss, and comfort in the ability to talk through some of the questions and issues that have come from their specific kind of loss. After 8 weeks it was sad to see the group end, but it was also good to see how much connection, comfort and healing happened.

I was thinking about the loss these individuals were experiencing when I ran into a man whose wife was a patient of mine two years ago. I was with them both when she died. I remember how much grief there was and how even though she was relatively young, her body racked with ALS, had shortened her life.

The man was now engaged to a woman who had a few years before lost her husband. They asked me to officiate their wedding, that will happen later this month, and I agreed. They told me that they found in each other a healing love. They found a safe harbor for memories and a place to explore who they are now. With deep gratitude they started to say to each other “we get to do this” because they get to keep living and loving. They talked about how their spouses are a part of who they have become, and they bring all of that with them into this new beginning together with thankfulness.

What I have learned about grief is that when the heart is ripped open from loss, it gains the ability to grow even bigger. There is no question that it is painful but if you allow yourself to feel the pain and grow with the pain it will become bearable. Eventually, you will grow into the person you are now, because you will never be who you were before you felt this kind of loss.

The pain of loss leaves the heart open, filled now not only with the love you knew (because that love never goes away) but with the capacity for deep empathy and compassion. Loss is the fertilizer from which empathy and compassion grow, it is the basin where wisdom can emerge, and new love can find fertile ground to flourish. For the heart to grow after loss it must be nurtured.

Last week my brother and sister-in-law’s twins were born. It is with great joy that my family welcomes these two new lives into the world. After so much personal loss it is such a gift to see these two beautiful babies bring change and new hope. It is awe inspiriting to see new life and know that within those tiny bodies is all the information about how they will grow and develop. They will be nurtured, loved and, over time, they will show us who they are.

We will all have times in life where we feel powerless, where we are forced to experience a change we did not want, and all must eventually experience loss. Yet life moves forward, days pass and love will come again. Children are born, couples are united in loving unions, love grows and thrives, and as is stated in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “there is nothing new beneath the sun.” So live while you can, cry when you need to, and love as much as your heart will let you; because this too will pass, this too will change.

Rabbi Sarah Rensin
(503) 226-7079 ext. 740
rabbisarah@jfcs-potland.org

To read past blog posts, visit the Rabbi Rensin Corner archive here.