The final goodbye

So when my mum died, that first week passed in a blur. I went through the motions in a dream-like state. Nothing seemed real. How could it be real?

At the funeral however, as her coffin was being lowered into the ground, then it became real. Horrifyingly real. This was the final goodbye. And no way was I ready for that.

I broke down. I sobbed and wailed. Loudly. Embarrassingly loudly. Not that I was embarrassed. I was past caring.

Someone suggested to Andy in that moment that he come to me and calm me down. He refused. He was allowing me to grieve in my own way, as a good friend had advised him to do several days before.

It wasn’t pretty. It probably made some people uncomfortable. But it was my mum and this was my way.

The book of 2 Samuel opens with David grieving for his king Saul and his best friend, Saul’s son, Jonathan. As we saw in my last blog, Saul had fallen on his sword. According to an Amalekite witness, he had not managed to kill himself and had asked this foreigner to finish the job for him (he obliged and lost his own life as a result for taking the life of the Lord’s anointed one!)

Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.  2 Samuel 1:11-12

David was devastated. Saul may have made his life a living hell in later years but it had not always been that way. And Saul was his king. And as for Jonathan, well, he was David’s soulmate.

David mourns in his own way. He writes a song to say his final goodbye.

Saul and Jonathan—
in life they were loved and admired,
and in death they were not parted.
They were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than lions.  2 Samuel 1:23

And the main message of the song?

How the mighty have fallen!

He says it three times. It’s as if he can’t believe that someone as powerful and protected by God as Saul has actually been allowed to die.

Now that expression has made its way into contemporary language. This person once had it all. They were wealthy and powerful. The world was their oyster. Then they fell, hard. Now their empire has crumbled, their money is gone, and they are scorned by the people who once admired them.

And more loosely, it’s used as a jovial or mocking way of remarking that someone is doing something that he or she used to consider very demeaning.

Power is fragile. Celebrity is fragile. Success is fragile. Popularity is fragile.

And life itself is fragile. Let’s live every day in the light of that.