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How relationships end.

I slipped into the church and slid into the pew. Another funeral.

My friend’s family followed the casket, cloaked now by a white pall with a cross on top. While we cried, our pastor spoke. Relationships, as we know them and like them to be, end in only two ways: “By choice,” he said, “or in death.”

This means relationships end, but it also means they don’t. It means to cross paths and connect is to create an association so fragile it can end because we say so, or one so durable it can’t conclude without a flatline.

Another mystery.

We are powerful and powerless.

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Death.

A dove release in honor of my friend’s mom.

Today I attended a memorial mass, followed by a fabulous celebration of life for a good friend’s mother, who died a week ago today.

It amazes me how death unites people to each other and how it draws us toward Jesus (whether we act on it or not).

During mass, the priest said a prayer of thanksgiving to God – if I remember correctly – for summoning us to be there.

It kind of blew my mind.

Death already had such purpose (it’s our only road home).

But the purpose of death has more depth for me now that I see how powerful it is for the people who are left behind.

It is sad, yes. It can make a soul hurt. But, like the prayer said, it’s a summons. It’s kind of magnetic. It draws us toward each other and it draws all of us toward God.

I find comfort in this, and I hope you do, too.