Randy, RIP

I learned this morning that my oldest cousin, Randy, lost his battle with cancer and died last evening. He was fifty-two years old.

On the Simpson side I am the oldest of the cousins, but on the Miller side I'm third: as a little kid, Randy and Mike were the cousins I looked up to. We celebrated many Thanksgivings and Christmases and Fourth of July cook-outs with them in my most formative years of life, years that if I close my eyes feel like only yesterday. It is a strange thing when someone in your own generation dies, and I've been lucky so far not to confront that among my closest friends and relatives, even though I've helped shepherd others through those losses.

Part of my job is to help people to deal with death, and more particularly the grief that comes with it. I know and understand that role and dare say I've even gotten pretty good at it. For me the Burial Office is the most hopeful liturgy in the Prayerbook, rooted as it is in Easter morning. Even at the grave we make our song (and yes, even in Lent!) - alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Still, it is different to be in touch with my own grief, especially without a pastoral role to play. It is true that the longer I am in Holden, the fuzzier have become the lines between pastor-priest-friend. I have buried people over the past twelve years of whom I have been very fond, and whom I have counted as friends. I have therefore, even as priest leading families through their own grief, had my own share of losses. Still, this is different. It's been almost twenty-eight years since my dad died; at thirty-seven he was a decade younger than I will be in a few days. Since then I've lost all of my grandparents and Hathy's too.

Still, this is different.