My wife, Bobbie, died of Alzheimer’s disease earlier this year.
While I have been a pastor more than 45 years and have conducted more than 500 funerals, I was not prepared for the grief that overwhelmed me when she died. While I had seen it in others, it was different when it was “my” wife.
Our church, where I was pastor 25 years and have been an active member in retirement the last 15 years, was wonderful — both clergy and laity. Bobbie got visits from church staff, and she had friends take her out to lunch and to get her haircut and all manner of other kindnesses. Others would come stay with her if I had a doctor’s appointment or needed to run errands.
Mike Queen
Nearly 500 people attended her funeral, while another 400-plus watched the livestream online. I received hundreds of cards and emails. Memorial gifts seemed to come from everywhere. The church staff and our friends in the church were quite simply “there for us.” My family and I were filled with sincere gratitude for every show of kindness and mercy.
But all of that caused me to reflect on the hundreds of times I walked beside a man or a woman whose spouse had died. For what I “thought” I knew about that experience, simply put, I didn’t have a clue. Were their hearts broken like mine? Did their world feel as empty as mine? Was their sense of loneliness as palpable as mine? Surely the answer to all of those questions was “yes.”
“Even giving myself a measure of grace, I have truly wondered if they got what they needed … in that season of life.”
I began to wonder if I, as their minister, had been what they needed me to be in that time of crushing loss. I did what I was supposed to do and did it as well as I knew how. Even giving myself a measure of grace, I have truly wondered if they got what they needed from the church laity and from me, as their pastor, in that season of life.
So I reached out to our now-retired 35-year associate pastor, Jim Everette, and our new minister to senior adults, Jennifer Brown, for a conversation around the issue. Jim had conducted hundreds of funerals himself, and Jennifer had been a pastor in Mississippi before joining our church staff. We decided to invite all the members of our church who had lost a spouse and who were able to join us for a broader conversation about this ministry.
Of the 47 invitees, 35 accepted our invitation. We had developed a series of eight questions to gauge how well their needs had been met. We used colored sticky notes for their responses, so that each person could respond in writing and do so confidentially. While not a purely scientific effort, the results were revealing.
First, we really know how to do a funeral service well.
Almost universally, the respondents said the funeral service was everything they hoped it would be. They said things like: “best funeral ever” … “so memorable” … “it was perfect.” Others commented on the meal and hospitality we provided for the family before and after the service. It felt like an A+ on the funeral itself.
“We did not do a uniformly good job in our follow up after the death of a spouse.”
Second, we did a good job of ministry if the person had been ill for an extended time.
This included visits in the home, hospital or nursing home, phone calls to check in and even food brought by Sunday school classes or others. A few comments indicated we had not been quite as attentive as we could have been. No doubt, we missed some opportunities that cannot be recaptured. Maybe a B- on this one.
Third, and the one that haunts me a bit even now, we did not do a uniformly good job in our follow up after the death of a spouse.
At best, a C- on follow up. As my colleagues and I have reflected on it, there are a lot of reasons for this one. While many of them may be legitimate, they often sound like an excuse when I list them.
Ours is a large congregation with a large staff. A lot is going on, which means everyone is busy with something. And we simply move on to the next thing. We averaged 22 funerals a year during the last five years when I was pastor of the church. That is essentially one every two weeks. We would barely finish up with one funeral and then we found ourselves planning the next one. At the same time, we had as many as 30 weddings a year, as well as all the other regular congregational happenings. Busy. Busy. Busy.
“We were busy with the perfectly good work of the church, but we sometimes failed to follow up in a meaningful way with a grieving spouse.”
We were busy with the perfectly good work of the church, but we sometimes failed to follow up in a meaningful way with a grieving spouse. It hurts me to even write that last sentence. Just as the world moves on after every death, the church often does the same, because there is other work to be done. The next family experiences a crisis, and we move on to them.
While this describes life in a large church with a large staff, the same holds true in smaller congregations. While a smaller church may experience fewer deaths or crises, the church may have only one pastor. And that person has to do it all. This matter of follow up is an issue, no matter the size and scale of the congregation. Informal conversations with a half-dozen minister friends revealed the same truth. We all seem to struggle with this particular kind of follow-up.
Of course, when we saw the widowed spouse at church or elsewhere, we hugged them and asked how they were doing. How on earth is a grieving spouse supposed to answer that question? My standard response when asked that questions has been, “Well, I’ve never done this before, but I think I am doing OK.” And in a sense, I am. I get up each day. I do what I have to do. I go to worship. I accept the invitations of friends. (My wife made me promise that I would.) But inside, I am broken. I now assume all those folk who told me they, too, were OK were also broken.
I have learned my family and friends love me so much they want me to feel better. They want me to be OK. They want me to get back to normal. They do not like seeing me sad. It is uncomfortable for them because they cannot fix it for me.
And so, having known Bobbie for 65 of my 80 years, and having been married to her for 56 of those years, her death has left a void in my world that nothing else can fill. As a friend of mine said, “I thought losing my wife was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but learning to live life without her has proven far more difficult than losing her.” I concur.
And this, I think, is the crux of the problem.
“It may be that they need us at least as much after the funeral, after the loneliness sets in, after it all becomes real.”
People need their church throughout an illness and death. People need their church at the time of a funeral/memorial service. But it may be that they need us at least as much after the funeral, after the loneliness sets in, after it all becomes real.
I used to write to every church member on the anniversary of the death of an immediate member of the family — mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister. I did this every year for the first five years after a death. People seemed to appreciate it. But I confess I did very little during that first year other than perhaps a follow up phone call or a chance conversation.
Our current pastor, Barrett Owen, has offered a grief share class at our church. Some folks have found it to be helpful. Others have said it was too soon for them. Perhaps one just needs to be ready for that level of introspection.
After we convened the group of widowed spouses to seek their input, we tried to ascertain next steps in this kind of ministry, and they truly seemed to welcome the opportunity to share their feelings. And it was clear that we — in my tenure as pastor and in the tenure of both of my successors — did not do all we could have or should have done in follow up with them. It was truly a “mixed bag.” Some folk said they got appropriate follow up, while others felt they did not.
So, now we are working to develop a protocol to make sure we do not take for granted people are doing OK. As Jennifer Brown said, “We have to become more intentional in our ministry to the bereaved.” While we have yet to fully flesh out that response, I suspect it will, indeed, be more intentional.
If I could go back and change how I responded, here are few things I would do.
First, I would make a phone call within two days of the funeral, conduct an in-home visit within two weeks of the funeral and make a contact of some sort every quarter for the first year. Some folk may require more than that, while others may need less.
Second, we can identify a cadre of folks to help with this ministry. As one example, our church has a card ministry where they create beautiful one-of-a-kind cards and mail them to those in grief. These always are well-received.
One of the women who participated in our group later told Jennifer the one thing she hated to hear from someone was, “Give me a call if I can do anything for you.” She said she knew they meant that. She knew it came from a good place. But she did not find it helpful. It put the onus on the grieving widow, and we are often hesitant to ask others for help.
When her husband died, this woman all of a sudden was a single parent with two kids in middle school. She said she wished someone had said: “Hey, we are going to the pool today. Can I pick up your kids and take them with us?” Or maybe: “We are bringing dinner for you and the kids tomorrow night. We’ll drop it off around 6.” Or maybe a call from a girlfriend saying: “A couple of us would like to take you out for lunch this week. What would be a good day?” Her message was simple. Don’t ask what you can do. Just do something that says, “I care.”
Third, we can encourage Sunday school classes/small groups to maintain contact and engagement with a widowed spouse to make sure they are not forgotten or slip through the safety net of relationships. Again, some already do this quite well.
Fourth, the church can guide people to other resources in the community. In point of fact, many of our respondents listed friends, both from within and outside the church, as well as counselors, books, podcasts and support groups as resources that have helped them in their grief.
No doubt there are a dozen other ways for the church to wrap its arms around a person in grief. We will best know what they are by listening to those who are experiencing grief and by remembering each person experiences grief differently. They do not all have the same needs at the same time. There will be more art or feel to this kind of ministry than science or strategy.
Finally, it is important to salute the ministers and laity out there who already do this follow up ministry and who do it well. May their tribe increase, and may all of us learn that, just because the world and we move on, those in grief have to, in the words of one of my mentors, Mac Wallace, learn to “sit with their grief.” They cannot speed it up. They cannot make it go away. They must “sit with” it.
Let us learn also to sit with them and to know it may take a while.
Mike Queen is pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church of Wilmington, N.C., where he served 25 years. In retirement, he has worked as a congregational consultant with the Center for Healthy Churches and served as interim pastor.
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