Is There A “Good” Death?

Facing the Last Enemy

If there is a “good” death, my friend and pastoral colleague, Terri Hill, experienced it.

There is nothing inherently “good” about death. From a biblical perspective death is always the ruthless contradiction of God’s primary intention for life. In his tour de force on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul called death “the last enemy” that will ultimately be brought under God’s control in the power that raised Jesus from the grave.

The question is not if , but how we die.

A “good death” is defined as “one that happens when we are among our own, surrounded not by beeping meters and blinking monitors but by the faces of family and people who care … The good death, like the good life, does not happen in isolation … The power of being there is that it emboldens others—family and friends—to be present too to the glorious and sorrowful mysteries.” That’s the way Terri died after a strenuous battle with cancer.

Terri and her husband, John, are United Methodist pastors in the Florida Conference. Terri and I became friends when we sat beside each other on the Board of Ordained Ministry in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Martha and I cherish happy memories of traveling through England with them on a Wesley study retreat.John is a brother in the clergy covenant group in which I’ve participated for 43 years. Our group along with a Terri’s group of clergy women have been blessed by walking with them along this sacred journey.

Terri was a strong, no-nonsense woman who faced life with intelligent faith, courageous honesty, immense love for her family and friends, and irrepressible joy. The sound of her laughter will echo through the empty space she leaves in our lives until we join her in the resounding laughter of the resurrection.

Another colleague and I visited Terri in hospice care during the last weeks of her life. She talked honestly and openly about her death just the way she talked about everything. I asked, “What have you learned?” Without a moment’s hesitation she said she had learned the importance of a long pattern of spiritual disciplines. Referring to Jesus’ words, she described it as a solid foundation that was upholding her in the face of death.

The Everlasting Arms

Terri told us a story she told to the family and friends who were visiting her. She was experiencing pain after back surgery when a physical therapist came to move her from the bed to a chair. Aware that Terri was afraid, the therapist said, “You don’t need to be afraid. I have strong arms and I’ll be holding you. I’ve never dropped a patient.” Terri described it as the voice of God telling her she did not need to be afraid of dying. It was her assurance that she would be held in the strong arms of God. I remembered the old gospel hymn that says:

What have I to dread, what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

A New Adventure

Terrie was always up for a new adventure. She used that word to describe her expectation of what happens when we die. We compared text messages around C.S. Lewis’ closing words in the Chronicles of Narnia.

“The dream is ended,” said Aslan. “This is the morning.” Things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories … But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” 

If there is a “good” death and if there is “good” grief, it’s what Paul means when we said we “do not sorrow as those without hope.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

And yet… With all of our hope, if we had our druthers, we’d prefer to have her here with her husband, her children and grandchildren, and with all of us.

As I write these words, I’m painfully aware that I am not the one who has to go home to the empty house in Key West and face the almost unbearable silence without her voice and her laughter. We live and we die in this “thin space” between the memory of what was, the reality of what is, and hope of what will be. In it all, we have the assurance that “nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created” (Romans 8:38-39)

Thank you, Lord, for Terrie. May she “rest in peace and rise in glory.” And so may we.

Grace and peace,

Jim