Several weeks ago, I stopped at a gas station for a tank of gas and a really bad (but much needed) cup of coffee. The place was packed and there were customers three deep in five separate lanes. Obviously, they had been overrun by surprise, because every available employee was running a register to try to keep up with the rush. I found myself in a lane with a young man at the register who (based on his outfit) usually emptied trash and did cleaning jobs. He was making a valiant effort at customer service, but was clearly out of his element. As I got to the counter, he noticed my collar and said, “Oh…Hi. So..are you like a pastor?” I get that question a lot, and I’m always tempted to get into a debate about pastor/minister/priest, etc., but since there were quite a few people behind me I thought I’d be brief instead. “I am. I’m an Episcopal Priest.” “Cool,” he said, smiling and ringing up my gas and coffee. Then he said, “You probably don’t have time to get into it, but can I ask you a question?” “Sure,” I said, assuming it would be something about being a priest with a wedding ring. (It is almost always a question about the wedding ring. I was once pulled over for speeding and the Highway patrolman seemed ready to let me go, then noticed the carseat in the back and clearly felt I’d been lying to him about being a priest.)
The young man drew a slow, deep breath and looked to the ceiling, finding a way to ask his question. Then he looked me dead in the eyes and was silent for a moment. “What’s the biggest thing about death?” It was not the question I was expecting. Not anywhere near it. It caught me off guard and for a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. I looked over my shoulder and saw a growing number of customers and thought to myself, “What can I possibly say to that question that is worth hearing, but doesn’t take two hours to rattle off?” He noticed me checking the line and said, “You probably don’t really have time to answer. That’s okay.” I found myself feeling quite small and quickly blurted out, “No, no! That’s okay. I’ll try to give you a quick answer.
What I said next is true, but is not what he wanted or needed to hear.
“What I always tell people, is that the most important thing when someone dies is to remember to breathe. It is easy to get caught up in so many emotions or the the magnitude of practical details to deal with. You have to remember to take long, deep, deliberate breaths to let your heart catch up to your head. And sometimes to help you heart slow your head down. Remember, the first gift God gave anyone was breath. As he is creating Adam, he breathes life into him. That shows how important He feels breath is; so important that He made it His first gift to humanity.”
The young man smiled and said, “Okay. Thank you.” Then after the shortest of moments added, “Come again.” And turned to the next person in line. I walked out the door and across the parking lot in a fog. I got into my car and instantly regretted not opening a different line of discussion. It isn’t that what I said was useless, but it didn’t really answer his question, and certainly didn’t answer what was on his heart and mind. It felt, at the very least, like a missed opportunity, and probably amounted to a pretty big failure on my part. I thought about that exchange for the rest of the day and returned to the same station several times over the following weeks, hoping I’d catch him emptying the recyclables outside so I could really answer his actual question. I haven’t seen him again, but I always keep my eye out for him.
If and when I catch him, I’ll try to remind him of that other talk, then I’ll tell him this:
“The biggest thing about death is that it literally changes the world. For each of us, our worldview consists of all the facts and knowledge and opinions we’ve picked up throughout our lives, but we only understand those ideas through the lens of who we see ourselves to be. That might begin with some of our internal thoughts and memories, but it is all grounded in our relationships with other people; I am someone’s son, husband, father, friend, etc. When that someone dies, it changes the entire world, because it knocks us out of that way of defining ourselves. If that someone dies, it becomes difficult to understand how that relationship continues and, by extension, who we are now and what the world is now without them in it. There are many things about death that are difficult and strange and transformative, but the biggest thing about death is that it makes it difficult to see ourselves as the person we were when that other person was in our world.”
I’m not sure that will answer his question either. In fact, if I do see that kid again and drop all of that on him while he’s changing out garbage cans, it will likely just freak him out. He probably doesn’t remember that exchange, and if he does, he probably doesn’t feel like it was such a horrible response. I just wish I’d have given him that second answer because if he was struggling with losing someone and was hoping for a toe-hold to get his head above water, I probably didn’t help as much as I would have liked. Maybe I’ll get a second chance. I hope so.
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