March 22, 2025
The day that Dan learned his old friend Bernice had died, he vowed that he would go wherever he had to go for her funeral. Most likely, he thought, it would be in Vermont, where she had moved in her later years to live with her daughter. She suffered from dementia after she reached her 80s and was fortunate to have a child who took her in.
He still remembered the time he visited her, and she gave him a prayer shawl that she had knit for him over a period of weeks. She said that all the while she was working on it, she was praying for him.
He was in awe as she told him the story about her devotion. He cherished the shawl and kept it hanging over a chair in his bedroom, and every time he encountered a crisis or tragedy, he would go sit in the rocking chair and wrap the shawl around him and realize that her prayers were still at work … and his peace returned. As fate, or providence, would have it, everything worked out in the end.
All he could say was “Thank you, Bernice, for your prayers, which must be pretty powerful because God always answers them.”
He drove across the state to her funeral and stood a long time in line behind family members and friends. He couldn’t wait to tell her son and daughters about the prayer shawl and what a wonderful woman she was even though they clearly knew.
The line seemed to stop moving as a couple exchanged childhood stories with her son and kept talking for 10 minutes. Dan waited and tried not to appear impatient. When they finally moved, he walked up to her son and held out his hand, but there was no handshake. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, but before he could tell him the story about his mother, the man brusquely said, “Thank you” and looked to the next person.
Dan didn’t know whether he was hurt or angry. He walked out and left feeling worse than before. He hadn’t even been given a chance to express his condolences and share his own grief.
***
Always remember that in your grief, others are grieving too. Be compassionate to them the way you would
like them to show you compassion.
©J Pisani
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