Relating To Our Loved Ones After They Die

By Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI 

In 1979, Sheldon Vanauken published a book entitled A Severe Mercy; in it he tells the story of the death of his wife, Davy. The book is an account of an extraordinary romance, cut short while still in full bloom by Davey’s premature death.

This story has intrigued many people, both because of the extraordinary relationship between Sheldon and Davy before her death and because of the relationship between them after her death.

Vanauken describes how after her death he still felt her presence strongly and vividly. She was gone, in that brutal and irrevocable way death takes loved ones away, but he still felt her presence — as real as he had before she died.

In the early months after her death, her presence to him was constant, guiding, sure, consoling, the same as it had been while she was alive. She had died, but inside himself he felt her present – as wife, lover, best friend, soulmate. And during those months he always carried her wedding ring in his pocket, which he fingered tenderly many times each day. Touching it helped keep him aware of her presence.

One day, while on a ship crossing the Atlantic, he felt her presence change. In the silence of his heart and soul, he felt her speaking to him, telling him that, up to now, they had needed that kind of presence with each other, but that this now needed to change. They needed to move to a different plane in their relationship. She was telling him that she needed to “let him go” in the way she had been present to him until now and she needed to ask him to “let her go” in the way they were now present to each other. It was a difficult moment, but Sheldon understood its meaning. He took the ring from his pocket and quietly dropped it into the ocean.

From then onward, Davy was still present to him, but now in a new way. Her presence now was less explicit, though not more distant. Now her presence was less that of the earthly wife, soulmate, and best friend, and more the presence of a person who loves you and holds you in a way that’s harder to describe.

Thousands of persons who have lost loved ones to death, including myself, can identify with that story, both in terms of feeling the presence of a deceased loved one inside ourselves, and in terms of feeling this relationship, at a point, develop and move to a new plane.

In my own case, I lost both parents when I was 23 years old. For nearly two years, like Sheldon Vanauken, I felt their presence as sure, guiding, and parental (they were still very much my mom and dad, still very much with me); though, in my case, it was not always a consoling and warm presence. The pain of their loss would occasionally bring me feelings and tears that were not warm. My mom and dad were still with me, but at this early stage their deaths still left a cold scar.

However, sometime between the first and second year after their deaths this changed. For me, unlike for Vanauken, there wasn’t a clear moment when this happened. It happened gradually and imperceptibly, their presence to me and within me changed.

But, parallel to Vanauken’s experience, what I experienced was a shift in presence from one plane to another. I still felt their presence, just as before, but now something had let go, even as something else took its place.

I felt their presence now as a deep consolation and their loss no longer hurt as before. I no longer felt a need to pray for them. Instead, now I felt a need (which I still feel today) to pray to them.

They were still my parents, but something had changed. I hesitate to use words to describe this because they might sound vague and wishful, but what I felt can only be characterized this way: They were still my parents—alive, deeply concerned for me, and more present in my life than they ever could be while still in this life. But now I felt that presence as something higher, more universally shared with others, and more tied to God’s love and presence to me. It became harder to differentiate their presence from the general feeling of divine providence that I sense in my life,

I come from a large family. Basically, all my siblings had a similar experience. Moreover, many people have shared similar stories concerning how they continue to feel their relationships with their deceased loved ones change and grow even after their deaths.

Vanauken’s story of an ongoing, developing relationship with a loved one who has died is paralleled everywhere. Relationships continue to grow and develop even after death.

Exotic stuff? No! Tis the stuff of dogma. One of the essential articles of our faith teaches that death doesn’t end a relationship.

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Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a Professor of Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology. He can be contacted through his website  www.ronrolheiser.com. He is now on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

Find Fr. Rolheiser’s past columns online, along with an explanation for the column’s title “In Exile”: RonRolheiser.com/ARCHIVE