Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Where two or more are gathered, you are in the sanctuary of witnesses. For the past three months, my family and I have been blessed to have lived in this sanctuary with a host of witnesses who have laughed and cried with us, encouraged us, prayed with us, and returned again and again.

Last weekend at my father’s memorial service, I looked out upon this cloud of witnesses: family, colleagues, fellow poets, pigeon racers, friends and students. As we shared words and song, this collective tribute of honor and love was more than we could have imagined. But such is the power in a cloud of witnesses: together we are stronger, together we are better.

There is a solitary nature to dying and grieving. Even when others are physically present–perhaps sitting by your side–you are pulled inward. And once there, you often find yourself in the cellar of all that you have known. Mason jars of past life line the walls, stretching upward in infinite gray rows. Too many to count, too many to open. As your eyes and heart move up, row to row, gray unfolding to more gray, infinity suffocates you.

Until it does not. Because a voice or hand pulls you back, and you are breathing, once more, in the sanctuary of witnesses. When the hospice workers came to provide bathing, nursing, and ministering care for my father, it became immediately obvious that they came for us as much as for him. I would call these individuals angels of mercy, but this phrase does not begin to do them justice. Often, they were only with us for 15-20 minutes. These minutes, however, sustained us throughout long days. For in these minutes, we felt the genuine presence of witnesses to our love and grief. These were minutes of grace that went far beyond the physical acts each hospice representative performed.

There were other voices and hands that pulled us from the cellars of our souls. Daily visitors–friends, students, neighbors, and colleagues–sat by my father, bedside, but spent precious minutes with each of us in our family kitchen or on our front porch. Here, away from my dad, they heard our prayers and fears, embraced us in hugs, silently wept with us, and simply held our hands. In the sanctuary of witnesses, it takes all kinds–and my family and I were blessed to have all kinds of individuals and responses. Each was unique and just right for the day and the moment.

And there were witnesses that testified to their love and prayers for my father and for us through the written word. Cards and letters arrived daily, each a sliver of light in the gray cellars of our grief. Even the mail carrier became a witness as she brought healing words in the late afternoon when the day moved much too slowly, refusing to surrender to night and a few hours of sleep, that sweet relief from thinking, remembering, and imagining a life without the one we love.

The truth is that, in the sanctuary of witnesses, you can find hope. When a memory or feeling takes you by the hand and leads you deeper into the cellar, you go–sometimes reluctantly and other times willingly. In the dark, you remember and grieve. And then a witness arrives, and you take his or her hand and climb those same stairs to join the living again. Once again bright-eyed, giving yourself to joy, a momentary stay against grief.

Let it be said that I, for one, am a big fan of the sanctuary of witnesses. I plan to be a lifetime member and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.