A few days ago, I was asked to write a group study for youth using the song “Death Without a Funeral” by Jason Gray. I read the lyrics through the first time and was not immediately sure of the message. Then I watched a behind-the-music video and immediately felt the weight of a writer who had sought to articulate his grief following a divorce. Here is a portion of the words:
There's no stone to lay the flowers down beside
No mention in the paper, though something clearly died
No gathering for family and friends to eulogize
It's a death without a funeral
There's no book to sign for people filing in
No table full of pictures, where they'd say "Remember when"
No song is sung about how all good things come to an end
It's a death without a funeral
When you see me, I'm still breathing
Though a million things have died inside of me
But there's no healing without grieving
No wonder why it's hard to rest in peace
When there's nothing we can bury in the dirt
No place to lay the memory of all the things that were
No way to feel the closure, no ending to the hurt
It's a death without a funeral
Songwriters: Jason Jeffrey Gray / Andrew H. Gullahorn
Death Without A Funeral lyrics © Music Services, Inc
Hearing this song and reading the words transported me to a place of pain, a place without a ceremony to mark the formal end of celebrating a life well-lived. Instead this place is barren with little to no closure in sight. Sitting in this place caused me to treasure my own marriage even more and then dropped me at the center of what it might feel like to be a child or adolescent in the middle of this “death.”
We have often heard it said through counselors or various studies that a child’s worst fear is losing a parent through death, divorce or abandonment. This trauma is more common and yet more easily taken for granted. For some kids the trauma of divorce is blunted, at least in their understanding, by seeing so many cases that it becomes normalized.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a high school girl about her future. I asked her to imagine what she might be doing in 10 years. She had hoped to be graduated from a university and holding down a steady job. She then, very matter-of-factly, said, “I will have been married and then divorced.” The words came so smoothly they caught me by surprise. She was the child of a divorced mom and dad. After working my way through the astonishment, I reminded her this is not true of every couple and there was hope for her.
The stories around us, the consequences of divorce in our immediate and extended families, all have wrought collateral damage among our children and youth. We may have seen divorced parents become good friends and handle the aftermath as well as could be expected. Still, any divorce, no matter how amicable, is traumatic for a child. The child’s trauma is often masked yet very real.
As a family of God we have the opportunity to walk alongside the children and youth of our church, feeling deeply the “death without a funeral.” Through our listening, loving, prayers, counsel, modeling and enfolding into relationship we can be agents of God’s unconditional love. We can represent one who will never leave or forsake us.
May we bring some measure of rest and peace to those so quietly crying out for the love they have lost.
* For more information on caring for children and youth after trauma, visit our youth ministry tools and training page.
We have often heard it said through counselors or various studies that a child’s worst fear is losing a parent through death, divorce or abandonment. This trauma is more common and yet more easily taken for granted. For some kids the trauma of divorce is blunted, at least in their understanding, by seeing so many cases that it becomes normalized.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a high school girl about her future. I asked her to imagine what she might be doing in 10 years. She had hoped to be graduated from a university and holding down a steady job. She then, very matter-of-factly, said, “I will have been married and then divorced.” The words came so smoothly they caught me by surprise. She was the child of a divorced mom and dad. After working my way through the astonishment, I reminded her this is not true of every couple and there was hope for her.
The stories around us, the consequences of divorce in our immediate and extended families, all have wrought collateral damage among our children and youth. We may have seen divorced parents become good friends and handle the aftermath as well as could be expected. Still, any divorce, no matter how amicable, is traumatic for a child. The child’s trauma is often masked yet very real.
As a family of God we have the opportunity to walk alongside the children and youth of our church, feeling deeply the “death without a funeral.” Through our listening, loving, prayers, counsel, modeling and enfolding into relationship we can be agents of God’s unconditional love. We can represent one who will never leave or forsake us.
May we bring some measure of rest and peace to those so quietly crying out for the love they have lost.
* For more information on caring for children and youth after trauma, visit our youth ministry tools and training page.
Doug Ranck is Associate Pastor of Youth and Worship at Free Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, CA. With three decades of youth ministry experience, he serves as ICTG Program Director for Youth Ministry, as well as a leading consultant, trainer and speaker with Ministry Architects, the Southern California Conference, and, nationally, with the Free Methodist Church. He has written numerous articles for youth ministry magazines and websites, and published the Creative Bible Lessons Series: Job (Zondervan, 2008). Doug is happily married to Nancy, proud father of Kelly, Landon and Elise, and never gets tired of looking at the Pacific ocean every day.
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