Facing the empty chair

Here's my article for November:

The Prayer Spaces that we'll be running this month in the schools will be themed around 'Remembering' – not specifically on wars and conflicts, but more generally on remembering loved ones and others who have died. One of the activities will be around an empty chair representing the gap that is left in our lives after the death of someone close. The children will have the chance to express a bit of how they feel, and reflect on the good memories, but it also allows for, and affirms, the sad ones.

The grieving process is different for everyone, and there are many rituals and practices that are recommended by different people to aid the process. Some of these are more helpful than others, some are well-intentioned but actually hinder healing. It seems to me that the most unhelpful ones are those that encourage our natural desire to 'hold onto' our loved ones and in some way to deny the reality of death – a desire that Canon Scott-Holland parodies in what has now become the poem “Death is nothing at all.”

It is very common to 'talk to' loved ones who have died, and there is nothing necessarily wrong in doing that. However, if we expect a response from them we turn a cathartic action into one that keeps the wound open. I sometimes stand at the graves of my predecessors and 'ask' them about what's happening in the parishes, but I don't expect them to answer, and nor do I even think they can hear me. I talk to them in the same way I talk to objects – not to communicate with them but just as a sounding board to express my thoughts.

The recent popularity of letterboxes for “Letters to Heaven” is a practice that treads this distinction. Carrying on the habit of sending letters and cards, at least shortly following a death, can be cathartic, but it seems to me that if it is done so as not to let down or disappoint the one who has died, it becomes something that hinders the process of letting go. And for children it might be especially unhelpful if because of a lack of reciprocal cards they think their loved one does not love them any more.

I've written previously of the dangers of mediumship as it opens us up to malevolent spiritual forces beyond our control, but it is also unhelpful because it falsely claims that the dead can communicate with the living.

So what can we do when faced with the empty chair? Recalling memories, both happy and sad, is a very important part of the grieving process, but the aim of the process is to let go – to be grateful for life whilst acknowledging the reality of death. However, our deep desire that life continues after death should point us to the One who offers exactly that: Jesus promises: “Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and those who live and believe in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26).