When Everyone Is Dying

Notes on Grief, Celebration, and the Lives We Remember

What do we do when everyone seems to be dying?

Lately, that question has followed me from week to week. I’ve been to six funerals in the past couple of months. And another, especially close, is scheduled soon. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s just…life, when you’ve lived a while.

Each service has stayed with me for a different reason.

There was the celebration of life in the old grange hall, friends sitting in a circle with stories and laughter. There was the liturgical funeral in a quiet Episcopal church, filled with ritual and memory.

One took place in a community center where family and neighbors stood in clusters, each sharing pieces of how he had blessed their lives with his craftsmanship.

Another filled a packed funeral home with students, recipients, and co-workers for a woman who founded and led a local hospice, teaching a grieving world how to breathe again. I know. I was one of her students and employees.

And these are just a few…

We All Grieve Differently, and We All Grieve

There’s no one way to mourn.

Some families need candles and prayers. Some need potluck and music. Some need silence.

It struck me, not for the first time, that our grief doesn’t look the same because our lives don’t look the same. And yet—grief is one of the most ordinary things we do as humans.

Ordinary. And sacred.

The Grave Closes, But Grief Doesn’t

People are kind. They show up. They bring casseroles, sometimes flowers. They ask how you’re doing.

But most of the time, grief doesn’t show up in the first weeks.

It comes in the quiet that follows.

The morning you forget for a moment that she’s gone. The empty chair at a birthday. The phone number you still can’t bring yourself to delete.

Grief is not something to finish. It’s something to carry.

And yes, the weight shifts. But it rarely disappears.

Why We Call It a Celebration

I’ve sat in pews and folding chairs where laughter and tears took turns. And I’ve wondered—why do we call it a celebration?

Maybe it’s because memory insists on showing us the whole picture. Not just the dying, but the living that came before.

It’s in the way someone made soup. The old boots by the back door. The phrase they always used when the car wouldn’t start. The funny story no one had told in years.

Sometimes all we can do is show up and remember. And that is no small thing.

There Are Gifts in Dying, Too

This might feel strange to say, but I’ve seen it.

There are gifts in dying, too.

A moment of forgiveness between siblings who hadn’t spoken. A final blessing offered through a squeeze of the hand. Stories told while the person could still hear them.

Dying—like living—is not tidy. But it’s full of possibility.

It slows us down. It strips away what doesn’t matter. It reminds us we are finite, and that love outlasts our bodies.

A Multitude of Traditions, A Shared Human Thread

Some services I’ve attended in the past included prayers in languages I don’t speak. Some had no prayer at all. One ended with the Lord’s Prayer. Another began with a moment of shared silence.

I’ve come to trust that grief makes room for all kinds of belief.

Somewhere between the hymns and the photo slideshows, between the incense and the casseroles, something holds consistent.

We know, in our bones, that a life matters. That remembering matters.

The Trouble and Blessing of Remembering

Memory is a strange and unpredictable visitor.

Some days it arrives easily, as a favorite song or the scent of something baking.

Other times it barges in, uninvited, with a phrase or expression that knocks the breath out of you. We don’t get to choose what we remember—or when.

And yet, remembering is one of the ways we love.

It may not always feel like a gift. It can sting. It can make us yearn for something we can no longer have. But to forget completely would be a greater loss.

Memory carries presence. It holds her laughter, and tone of his voice, and the feel of a hand in yours.

There are days when I remember someone I haven’t thought of in years, and for a moment, they are with me. Not in a ghostly way, but in the unmistakable sense that they shaped me—and maybe still do.

Remembering also lets us carry something forward.

We live differently because of those who came before us. We grow in their shade. We move in the world with their quirks stitched into our gestures.

And yes, sometimes memory needs rest. You can close the photo album. You can turn off the voicemail you saved. You can set it down and return later.

But you don’t have to fear remembering. It is not the same as staying stuck. It is, more often than not, a quiet form of gratitude.

What Now, When Everyone Is Dying?

I don’t have an answer, really. Only this:

Keep showing up.

Keep lighting candles or bringing soup or sitting in silence.

Keep telling the stories.

Keep allowing the ache to rise when it needs to.

Keep naming the beauty, even through the blur.

And if you’ve lost someone recently—if the silence in your house feels sharper than usual—know that you’re not expected to be “over it.” Not now. Not ever, really.

If this speaks to something you’re carrying, I’d be honored to hear your story.