Visiting the grave: reality sets in

Today in our Holy Week journey we find ourselves in that strange zone that grieving families experience when everyone has gone home after a funeral and somehow while their lives go on, we are left trying to make sense of what has just happened. It is a numbed place where the reality of the death of a loved one begins to set in. The pain that was somehow numbed by the funeral, the presence of loved ones, the cards, the sympathy now begins to wear off and the reality of the rest of our lives without the person we love begins. They are gone. We miss them.

A visit to a grave the day after a funeral is a sobering experience. Seeing the mound of clay clung like a mounded and body-shaped blanket over the place that yesterday was a hole into which our loved one was laid makes it so real that this is indeed reality. 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes...'

This photograph is of my father's grave the day after his funeral: his birthday is today...

Today, Easter Eve, there is a strange 'nothingness' as we reflect on the enormity of what God has given to us by sharing the most painful experience of death to give us hope...

And so until tomorrow... we wait...

Almighty God,
your son through his death and burial
hallowed the grave.
Be with us as now we journey on in the hope of resurrection.
Be our companion and our guide.

May we live by faith, walk in hope and be renewed in love,
until the world reflects your glory
and you are all in all.Amen 
(adapted from the Book of Common Prayer,  ©RCB 2004)