A Place Among the Souls
“Can we get a cat after Truman?” my three-and-a-half-year-old asked me last week. Truman, our rambunctious hound dog, is only seven. Barely middle aged.
I paused. “What do you mean?”
“You know, after he’s…gone. Can we get a cat next?” she asked, with the sincerity of a preschooler.
I’m amazed that my no-longer-toddler already has some concept of death. She has lost a grandparent. She has spent enough time visiting her grammy’s assisted living that she surely has some sense of what aging looks like, but this conversation surprised me. We have never directly talked about “death,” but she has some idea that one day animals (and people) will be “gone.”
In caring for aging family members, I have come face-to-face with my own mortality more in the past few years than ever before. I will admit that it terrifies me. I am a person who always wants to know what happens next. I want to know, with certainty, that my children will live long and happy lives, that my mother-in-law will die peacefully in her sleep, and that my husband will outlive me. I also want to know that, at the end of my time, I’ll be close with God, and not cast into some unknowable fog. For some reason, it is my daughter’s word - “gone” - that really fills me with a sense of dread.
Autumn is a season of pausing for reflection, and the liturgical season lends itself well to this spirit of recollection. Death is not the most powerful force, these readings remind us – Christ is. Today, as we celebrate All Souls, we are reminded that death is a reality faced by billions before and after us, but God’s love is the force that really unites us. I do not think I will ever find my place among the saints, but I hope that I will be among the souls. We will all find ourselves united, and preserved, in the continuing love and grace of God.
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