But I also understand why she went on about it. At least, now I do.

I started to really cope with my grief in 2024 at a writer’s workshop in Collegeville, Minnesota. One friend with whom I am connected on substack was also a participant there and knows some of the story I started to write. I had to put it down to finish an academic book, but now I am back at it and it is contributing to my healing.

I have a story I have only shared with one other person that has been bothering me for all of these years.

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Tresja suffered a cerebral artery ruptured aneurysm after a late dinner near the US embassy in Haiti on August 18, 2021. She was initially responsive, but deteriorated very quickly. The medical staff arranged for a medevac to take her to Miami in a desperate attempt to save her life.

The earthquake that had devastated Haiti made communications very difficult. (She was in Haiti as the Deputy Leader of Operations to provide assistance on the ground, which the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance for USAID performed expertly and will again in the future).

They had a hard time reaching me. Once I heard from them, I learned that her health status was critical and that only a miracle would save her life. There was no further contact until I heard from the emergency physician treating her in Miami later in the morning.

I found myself keeping a chaotic vigil in my basement, just as I had when my father had a cerebral hemorrhage in September of 2005 that eventually claimed his life.

I had to decide whether or not to wake our child or wait until we had more information. I also had to decide whether or not we should go to Miami or wait until we had a definitive report. We decided to start packing with the desperate hope that emergency surgery would stabilize her and give her a chance.

The second phone call from Miami put an end to that. Yes, she died, but I later learned that Tresja had coded ten times (10!) while on the Medevac. She was completely unresponsive by the time she arrived at the ER in Miami and her oxygen level was at 73.

Several months later, I found myself reading a medical report of over 100 pages for benefits and attempting to translate it into everyday English. The trauma was catastrophic.

But what really hit me was that I was not there.

Yes, a handful of people told me that they “would have” been on a plane in seconds to be on hand because maybe she would have survived. The chances of my making it there on time were pretty much zero. But it doesn’t matter.

I was not there to hold her hand.

I was not there to implore her to fight like hell.

I was not there to be her family, her church, the rest of the “one flesh” God joined together in 2002.

I was not there to speak so directly to her that my voice would pierce through to her soul and reboot her heart.

I was not there to be her advocate and loving husband.

I only told one other person about just how immediate the catastrophe was that came upon her (bless you, Greg).

The weight of the guilt of not being there has pinned me like a exhausted wrestler.

I have deferred the guilt involuntarily because I had to work and parent and provide.

This is why I have cried every day this month of August 2026.

And today is the day that I am letting go of this mountain of pain.

Because it’s not my fault.

I’m pretty sure she would say that there is nothing to forgive and that I should treat myself to a sandwich and a good game.

So I am forgiving myself today. I am being an angel of peace to myself.

And this is my last public post on my grief for a while.

Thank you for reading and listening.

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Today, I want to use this space to invite you to comment by sharing your experience of widowhood. I will include a short poll to accommodate everyone’s comfort level. I also invite all comments, knowing through experience that some of you are dear friends of widows and widowers, or have endured the end of marriage or a precious relationship through death, abandonment, or divorce.

My best friend has intuited correctly that I am at an inflection point. This is true, because it has been five years since my wife’s sudden death.

I did indeed orchestrate the five-year mark as a point of intense self-reflection, for those who suspected this to be the case. But it is working for me. The test would have failed and I would have bailed on it were it forced.

The reflection was an opportunity for me to evaluate how I have been coping. The setting was challenging - no local network of family/friends, one income, single parenting, employer stress. I started many rebuilding paths and ended up back where I had started. not a single one worked for me which was emotionally distressing.

My lesson learned:

The passing of my spouse was also the death of the life we had shared, and it was impossible to return to it, reconstruct it, or replace it. The energy required to keep going made it difficult to start a new social circle.

The conclusion that I have reached:

I was so focused on who and what I had lost that I turned my attention from who and what I still had. The people I had and the work I was doing were precious and lifegiving. It truly is a matter of learning how to live with a permanent wound. My child still had a parent, my students had a teacher, my church community had a deacon (and later a priest). The wound aches, but it no longer governed my life.

I hope to develop a habit of coping by living the life I have right before me. My mourning of Tresja’s sudden death will never end. But I can smile and laugh before and after I cry.

[And maybe hit that bucket list of watching a Vikings’ game at US Bank Stadium and walking part of the Camino].

How have you coped? Can you describe your experience?

I invite comments, which include experiences you have heard from others. You can also take this short survey;

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My aunt Lilly (Ludmilla) died unexpectedly at 30. She had just spent a few days visiting us at our house.

My devout Orthodox family taught me how to properly greet the newly departed. But I was terrified.

My fear retreated when I saw her in the casket. She looked beautiful, like she was sleeping!

I saw my mother, tears streaming down her face and her face quivering, kiss her younger sister tenderly.

I obeyed the ritual and kissed my aunt, to find her hands and face to be unmoving and ice cold. Cold in death.

When unexpected death came to my grandparents again, fifteen years later with my uncle’s death, I wondered if my grandfather would finally name the injustice. The man had survived so much brutality.

He was there when Stalin’s communist thugs completely emptied their home of food and arrested his father for being an “enemy of the people.” (He never saw his father again).

He was there when he somehow survived two years during Stalin’s Holodomor.

I did not know what to expect when we told him the sad news. Maybe he would finally complain.

Instead he made the sign of the cross and said, “совершалось” (“it is finished”), and made the sign of the cross. Tears streamed down his face, but he was interested only in comforting my grandmother.

We told him that everyone would understand why he had to stay home tomorrow. The bishop would excuse him from serving Liturgy. After all, he was 77 years old and had endured much suffering in this life.

He addressed us clearly and directly. He would serve Divine Liturgy as always, and would also pray the panachyda for my uncle. He instructed me to go to my parish (where I was choir director) and do the same. He rebutted our pleas and did exactly as he said he would.

That was one of the most intense and powerful moments of my life. I scolded myself for my lack of faith. He was teaching me how to be faithful in real life and I would take that lesson to heart.

On August 25, 2021, I was in St. Paul, at the same funeral home that oversaw the burial of both my parents. I was there to see my wife for the first time since she flew from Chicago to Haiti to offer humanitarian assistance to people suffering from a horrific earthquake.

The St. Paul Fire Department would escort her to the funeral home with fanfare because of her longstanding relationship with Fire, Search, and Rescue.

Some part of me was excited to see her because it was familiar.

I stood in the doorway to the funeral home bearing the full force of the intense heat of late August in the Twin Cities.

The excitement vanished when they brought a simple wood coffin out of the car.

I was not permitted to see her right away. The funeral director said she needed ten minutes to “get her ready” for me.

I was very worried at the 40-minute mark. I asked for the director, and she looked stressed, pleading for five more minutes. I asked her what was wrong? She said that my wife’s body was damp because of the heat.

They finally brought me to a private room. I had spent most of my time remembering my grandfather’s faith. “совершалось.” I had a duty to perform. As a member of the clergy, I had to pray the panachyda for my wife.

My experience of seeing her when they opened the casket was unlike seeing my young aunt in 1981.

Tresja was tucked under cheap blankets and the hair on top of her head was moist. The room was absolutely freezing, in complete contrast to the August heat. I was chilled.

The moment was very sober for me. Seeing my wife laid before me, cold in death, removed any fantasy I had that this was just a bad dream or a very sick joke.

It truly was finished. The journey that we were on together was over, in a single moment. I felt weak, and cold. I felt like I should say something. This was the only time I was going to have alone with her. I was nauseated, having barely eaten for days with almost no sleep as I absorbed the shock of her death.

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I reached out to my grandfather, in search of his steadfast faith.

I started to talk. And I wish I could tell you, dear reader, that I waxed poetic and expressed a faith like St. Polycarp at the time of his death.

But I did not know what to say. I acknowledged that we knew this was possible when we married. I thanked her for the twenty years we had together. I lamented the cruel rupture of the earthly portion of the life God had joined together. I asked for her forgiveness and for her fervent prayers for our child. I kissed her head repeatedly, knowing this was one of the last times I would be able to touch her in the flesh. I said “I love you,” over and over and over again. And I wept on and off for thirty minutes.

Then I told her that she knows who she married and that I had to pray.

We had prayed together so often in the past year, forced to stay home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Tresja prayed the Typica with me in our living room, plus all of Holy Week and Pascha.

One last time, we were together in this silent and cold space, praying. And I sang the panachyda.

Then I sat down and wept bitterly, shaking all over, despondent.

I saw my grandfather’s grave face and I argued with him.

“You know the Scriptures, Дідусь. Jesus wept when he saw how Lazarus’ family grieved his death.”

I waited for his correction. But it did not come. He bowed his head and put his arms around me in a gentle embrace, saying nothing.

I felt emboldened and strengthened. I stood up and approached my wife, cold in death, one more time, just the two of us, before the community would sing her into the kingdom.

Thank you for the life you gave me. I love you and will love you forever.

I kissed her forehead one last time.

Yes. It is finished.

And asked her to pray that God would give me strength to bear the force of the difficult days awaiting me.

I am not my grandfather. I do not have his faith or his incredible strength. But I do have love.

And that was enough for this day, five years ago, when I was alone with her one last time.

Cold in death.

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I see her in my dreams.

They’re always weird. The dreams are short, completely out of place, and have nothing to do with the life we lived.

Anxiety fuels the dreams. Guilt, too. In this one, I was dropping by to see her on the way to Liturgy. Who “drops by” to see their spouse? She was sick. She had a headache. She was pale and dehydrated. I asked if she wanted to go to the hospital and then random people interrupted us, and she disappeared.

Then, I found her! She was stunning, wearing a summer dress with a hat and a lot of makeup, part of the weirdness of the dream, because she was neither a dress nor makeup kind of woman.

She hugged me tightly and said, “I’m going to Trader Joe’s. I’m getting snacks, too. Do you want anything?”

I held her closely and said, “we need to spend time together. We need to put us first. It can all disappear in a moment’s notice.”

She smiled and said she agreed. And I woke up, the dream vanishing like smoke, returning to a dark day. My dark day.

I haven’t seen her in five years. Except for these occasional, weird, very intense dreams.

Others claim to have seen her and told me about it. I believe them. Is that beautiful? Yes. Am I jealous? Absolutely. Why them and not me?

I am filled with hope about her. I imagine her strolling through green pastures, breathing fully, finally free of those dreadful headaches, delighting in the life God has prepared for us.

I wish she could tell me of the universe and the multiverses she has seen and the glories of a life that has yet to come for me.

She is outside of time, in God, so anything is possible in terms of what she sees and experiences.

Does she think about us? About me?

Readers say, “Tresja is in paradise. You’re still here. Tell us how you’re doing, Nick.”

Very well. Get ready. Here comes the raw truth.

How am I doing?

I’m exhausted.

My brain went into overdrive after she died and it’s always in a constant state of rapid activity. My doctor says that the trauma caused my brain to fire neurons at a crazy pace.

A couple of people have admonished me for overthinking. They even said, “stop overthinking.” Oh, I wanted to turn off my brain. But I couldn’t. I was in a constant state of emergency. And I still am, though it’s slightly less frenetic than it was initially.

The raw truth is that there is a difference between my public and private faces.

Publicly, I am the same Nick as the 2021 version, except now I have a beard. Still teaching, writing, nerding out about football and basketball, Marvel, and going to the lake. Still a church guy. Always will be.

Yeah, I still walk close to ten miles a day.

Yeah, I “kept it going” so to speak and raised our kid by myself. No, there was no village to help me out, and no, I am not by any means claiming to be a hero. I screwed up as a widowed parent, early and often, and I have regrets.

Privately, I am worn out. Defeated. Exhausted. Listless. Angry, but quietly. Sober.

Tresja’s sudden death and disappearance from our lives necessitated a new way of life, a new pulse and rhythm.

I have struggled and failed to develop and sustain a life pulse that keeps me going.

Tresja’s death fundamentally altered my relationships with others.

At first, there were many who were present. But all of them resumed ordinary daily life. Why wouldn’t they?

I felt the distance and heard the exasperation in their voices with my attempt to make sense not only of her death, but what I was supposed to do now.

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Social situations were challenging. I related to people differently than I had previously.

Attending events where your friends and colleagues have their spouses/significant others is hard. You probably don’t believe me, but can you see it through my eyes?

School events have been bittersweet. I made a round trip to and from Indy with my kid and her choir friends for ISSMA in may, and I felt honored to be with them. And I thought about how much Tresja would have enjoyed it as well, so my sunglasses concealed the tears welling in my eyes, though not the quivering chin.

I was widowed, but not a widow. The black cassock I wore at church covered up the wounds and scars I was bearing. My appearance concealed the reality of a shattered heart, a bruised soul, and a lack of trust in people.

The 1-year anniversary of Tresja’s death in 2022 was a revelation. I had buried myself in fun and new activities. I scheduled the first panikhida (memorial service) for her at the Orthodox parish in St. Paul, with all of our close friends and family present, plus our beloved priest and matushka, Fr. Jonathan and Vera.

Everything felt different when I walked into the church. I felt cold and Tresja’s presence was powerful. I felt tears welling up and a lump in my throat before we even started. I realized that I had been numbing the pain with a busy social life. The panikhida returned me to my daily reality.

She died. And so did the life we had built together.

I became ill after the panikhida. Soon afterwards, I learned that I have heart disease. I had a stent placed in my left anterior descending artery, I have an enlarged aortic valve under observation, and am on medication. The rational explanation is that family history led to the disease. I am convinced that losing Tresja contributed in some way.

Writing about life after marriage with Tresja is frustrating. I want to be able to add to the collections of stories I have read and heard about joyful new life after the death of a spouse. Look at these examples of people who found purpose and did marvelous things! Once again, the appearance conceals the reality in my case.

The reality is that learning to live in a new way takes time and energy. Time because there are no shortcuts to learning what truly works for you. Energy because the learning tires one quickly. Tresja died while COVID was still a global pandemic. We had lived in Northwest Indiana for three years at the time of her death, and half of that time was in isolation. I didn’t have any established social anchors nearby.

A huge amount of my own energy was depleted by working for an institution in crisis mode and the job insecurity that comes with it, and balancing that with newly discovered health problems, ministry to the Church (limited as it was), and learning how to be a single father with no family nearby.

This new life, which was handed to me, combined with the loss of my best friend and confidant, the person with whom I shared everything, and the Great Silence that suddenly wrapped itself around me.

The real me, the one on the inside, ached for connection, for one or more confidants, for affection, and I learned quickly that almost everyone has an established social circle and that besties who like basketball, Marvel, and binging Netflix don’t grow on trees.

I dived deep into the ocean of work and was quite productive. I have published three books since Tresja died, with a revised edition of one of those books still to come. The validation that comes from conference dinners was nice, but it wasn’t what I needed. And I learned that I wasn’t alone. The world is filled with people navigating the same storm of rejoining community life after a catastrophic end to their marriage. We constitute a society of the unnoticed and the unwanted. I am convinced of this, even though no one has said so explicitly, at least to my knowledge.

All the work accomplishments, networking, and the social banter that characterizes academia did very little for me personally. I would come home from events to the Great Silence awaiting me.

I repeatedly failed to anchor in community and develop friendships over the course of these five years. This shortcoming challenged my trust in people. I have learned that I had limited energy and bandwidth to make a new life, though therapy. I am still learning how to connect with people who are new to me. It will take time for trust to develop so I can let down my guard.

I learned that the sword that pierced me did not kill me. My heart was still beating, my soul remained capable of joy and sorrow, my body was functional.

I recently visited Tresja’s grave following a fun week with a family member. I had been feeling happy and was still in good spirits while I ate dinner on my deck. Then the tears arrived, accompanied by enormous, chest-heaving sobs. I cried for 45 minutes, making quite the spectacle of myself in front of the birds perched on the branches of the trees in my yard. The episode made me sick and I was up all night with severe sinus pain and stomach distress afterwards. The scars caused by the wound still occasionally hurt. It is a part of who I am and will be moving forward.

My hope is that I am coming to an end of an arduous chapter in my life and that the next one will lead to new habits and to make the best of what remains. Everyone needs love and is worthy of it, and I have plenty of it to give. The other members of the society of the unwanted and unnoticed share many of the same needs as me. A life full of love written in the chapters remaining in the book of my life is one worth living. And I hope that Tresja will be waiting for me, will have rejoiced in me eventually finding my way, and will be excited to hear those stories when we meet again.

Though maybe not in a summer dress and red lipstick.

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Select Playlist

Tresja’s song for me

My Coping Songs

A Musical Expression of Our Life Together

A prayer for everyone

The hymn with which I have a complicated relationship

Some Orthodox liturgical services are more stimulating than others.

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Pascha is the Christian version of a heavy metal concert, complete with ritual movement, shouting, swaying bodies, very loud singing and chanting that leaves you with ringing ears and a queasy stomach.

I spent a solid portion of the post-liturgical time of Pascha by myself. There was some good, to be sure - my body needed rest. But I shared Pascha with my wife from 2001-2021, beginning the year before we were married. One does not simply recover from that experience. I did not feel bad all of the time, but I missed her company. I always will. It brought an inner emptiness that can’t be replenished by anything at all (more on this shortly).

I shared my feeling on social media, and a friend asked me how I could not embrace the joy of Christ’s resurrection? I felt anger flash through me, but then I thought about St. Paul’s message to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:13-18):

¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Yes indeed, what good news this is! St. Paul says that the Lord himself will come down from heaven - something we are still celebrating in our firm faith that Jesus himself came down to escort his mother, Mary, to heaven at her death. And it gets better! We will be “caught up together” with those who have died.

To put it in very simple terms: we will see our parents again. Our friends.

Our departed husbands and wives.

This is good news.

But St. Paul said that we would not grieve “like the rest of mankind.” He did not say that we do not grieve.

This part of the apostolic message is often muted in the emotional fervor of festal celebration. Jesus is risen from the dead! Why are you grieving?

When our Lord rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, he met them in their sheer humanity. He met them in their doubt (Jn. 20:27). He ascended to heaven and left the Holy Spirit with the Church.

We know the resurrection is coming, along with the reunion. But the reunion with our departed loved ones has yet to come. In the well-known “already, but not yet” emphasis for Christians to remain in the present, there is room for the desire, the yearning, the longing to be with those with whom we shared the communion with love.

People might have good intentions in inviting their bereaved friends to welcome the good news of the resurrection. They are mistaken, however, if they admonish their friends for grieving - even if it has been a long time.

Love is the source of grief, and one can grieve while learning a way of coping with a new way of life. It may be that the new way of life for the bereaved is quieter, a bit more somber, more measured, somewhat shaded. It is up to the bereaved to accept the darkness of loss and to learn how to live with it, and it is one of the most difficult assignments appointed in the school of life.

You can miss your departed spouse to the point of tears and still confess “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come” authentically.

Grieving your departed loved ones is not wrong. Those who instruct you not to grieve are the ones with the problem - let them resolve it.

We are not called to lay grief aside. We are called to grieve with hope in Christ, while we look for the resurrection of the dead.

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Readers may note that this is the final great feast of the liturgical year. The Church begins the liturgical year with Mary’s nativity (birth) on September 8 and ends it with her falling asleep on August 15, in terms of the most solemn feasts.

Pious devotion to Mary remains strong in the daily Christian lives of the faithful. People throughout the world ask for Mary’s intercession, often several times a day. The Church sings her canticle from the Gospel of St. Luke. People invoke her name multiple times throughout the day, praying before her image, begging for her aid, thanking her for her intervention.

The Dormition feast is unique in that it is the Church herself who tells us the story of Mary’s falling asleep. We learn the details in the rather abundant repository of hymns appointed for the feast, along with the festal icons. The Mother of God died in Gethsemane, surrounded by the apostles, who were gathered mystically by the power of the Holy Spirit.

A homily by St. Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople (early 8th c.), confirms the reality of Mary’s death (in Daley, On the Dormition of Mary, 158-9):

You had a body just like one of us, and therefore you could not escape the event of death that is the common destiny of all human beings.

St Germanus presents to us a beautiful paradox: the one who gave birth to the incarnate God, the source of his humanity, has moved to her new home, the “imperishable dwelling of eternity” (in Daley, On the Dormition of Mary, 159).

St. John of Damascus (also 8th c.) defines Mary’s death as a source of joy, a powerful symbol of Christ’s own victory over death given to humankind, and his mother first of all. St. John depicts an imaginary dialogue with Mary’s tomb, inquiring about the whereabouts of her body. The tomb replies that all of the heavenly powers appeared to escort her to heaven, that it had no power to decline the divine command, and that Mary had left divine grace that now dwells in the tomb (in Daley, On the Dormition of Mary, 221).

Mary’s death is a falling asleep because Christ has stripped death of its power to isolate humanity from life in God. Heaven welcomes Mary’s arrival with much fanfare and she mediates eternally for all of humanity, pleading the case of those who love her before the throne of God himself. (This theme is saturated in both the homiletic tradition and the hymns appointed to this feast).

The liturgical year ends with this message of great hope. Our earthly sojourns will indeed come to an end. But our story continues because we are not alone. The Mother of God herself, whose ‘yes’ to God brought Jesus Christ into the world, ascends to heaven on this day to be our advocates before God.

The Christian faithful who have lit candles, prayed before icons, and developed their relationships with Mary in prayer each and every day were living in accordance with a salvific truth: Mary loves you. She will be your advocate today and tomorrow. She will be your companion through thick and thin, through joy and tribulation, in health and in sickness, and in the transitus that brings us from earth to heaven, once and for all.

Many of us struggle to learn how to get close to Mary and the saints, including yours truly. It is never too late to invite her into your everyday life. May today’s glorious feast of her Dormition - her lifegiving falling asleep - become the beginning of our own commitment to being faithful citizens of God’s kingdom, with the assurance that the mother of Jesus Christ, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, will be with us at all times.

1. Binge on Orthodox influencers on digital media platforms (including mine).

2. Assume that a priest who is an online personality is a trustworthy source.

3. Assume that you should start with the Church fathers.

4. Engage in any online debate about hot-button issues.

5. Trash talk other religious communities.

6. Try to become a self-taught critic of the canons and authentic Orthodox iconography and music.

7. Obsess about ‘stuff’ - prayer ropes, icons, incense at home, having the perfect family altar. Jesus prayed in the wilderness, on mountains, in gardens, so that’s more than good enough for you, too.

8. Hurry through the process. You’re not on a schedule.

Do:

1. Follow this basic principle: the Church is your mother and your teacher. Let the Church, the community headed by Jesus and consisting of the communion of saints, teach you.

2. Read the Bible and pray the Psalter. The Psalter is the Church’s prayerbook.

3. Find a parish that works for you and settle in there.

4. Attend divine services and the Divine Liturgy, as often as you can.

5. Get to know people in the parish, go to them with questions, let them teach you the ABCs of the Church.

6. Have patience - with the people and yourself. They’re not perfect and neither are you.

7. Try to be at peace with people in your life who decline to join you in inquiring about the Church.

8. Request to be received when you’re ready.

This is also not my favorite time of year because a big anniversary is coming - five years since her sudden death.

Sharing personal thoughts and views on social media tends to leads to a predictable outcome - words and emojis of encouragement, and these are nice.

Sometimes though, I find it difficult to communicate that the struggle to cope and to find my way has continued while I am doing things that are good and normal. I started two essays in preparation for the five year anniversary of Tresja’s death, and - I stopped. Maybe I will resume one of these essays. Perhaps I will start over.

I struggle to write about grief because the decorum of academic appointment and ordination prohibits speaking raw truth. You tell the truth in your writing, but not all of it. And the easy way out of that is to write for yourself, but without sharing it for anyone else.

I spent ten days writing cold, hard truths in June 2024 at a writers’ workshop at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. One particular truth stands out to me - it captures how I felt, how I feel, especially about God, but making my thoughts public would offend some people and perhaps even get me into trouble.

I do want to share one truth that I am feeling today, after a week of vacation with my senior-in-high-school kid. It was the rare event that actually was kind of epic. I went out of my comfort zone. I stayed up later than I wanted to and decided to test that stent in my widowmaker artery by going on a roller coaster. I went high reward for a high risk. It was a great time.

So how does one transition from saying “it was a great time” to sharing that they’re not okay? I don’t enjoy sharing that I don’t know if I will really be okay ever again. I am not okay while occasionally having the time of my life. I am grieving and living. I am lamenting and rejoicing. I am experiencing all of these feelings at the same time.

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I got some much needed - we’re talking at the level of personal desperation here - good news in February. And then I got some “share-worthy” news a few weeks ago. There was no one to share it with. Yes, of course I shared it with my child on both occasions.

But when you have lived in that sacramental space of marital love and life where you’re sharing everything all of the time, and then suddenly you’re not - you never get used to keeping a lid on news. Well, at least I don’t. Maybe that’s a “me problem.”

We use metaphors to describe the feeling of losing the one person with whom you share everything. Breathing with one lung or living with one kidney. Using a stool with a leg missing. You get the picture, but again, it doesn’t quite capture the whole truth.

Time: Champion and Tyrant

Several of the rides at Universal Orlando require you to jump on and off slowly-moving platforms. It’s a reminder that time is undefeated. Well, almost. Time collapsed when Jesus died, was buried, and was raised from the dead.

Lifechanging events like the death of a spouse, parent, or child makes it feel like time stopped. It feels like time stopped for you, and only you, while everyone else is on the platform, waiting patiently at first for you to jump on. Then the vehicle bearing the people who are still in your life disappears until you submit yourself and jump back into the vehicle.

Time did not actually stop for you. It just felt like it. Everyone was waiting for you to resume the pulse and rhythm of daily life.

The bereaved person who finally jumps back into the motion-directed vehicle of life is exhausted and deeply wounded. The wounds come with them as they resume life. The wounds are with them when the desire for food and human connection God placed into us slowly reaccumulates. The end result is a person who is still wounded and fatigued, but no less capable of living.

Living as a person who recognizes lament in all of its expressions.

Living as a person who desires again but does so with the cross in plain view.

Living as a person whose experience of the personal collapse of time sharpens their sense of the finite nature of this world.

Living as one who knows that time is created and finite and will be halted by God again.

Living as one whose personal world passed away and who sees the fading of the present world much more clearly.

And, with an ambitious agenda on deck, the bereaved person lives very intentionally - because they know from experience that another day in this world is not promised.

Only eternal life with God is guaranteed.

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Egeria, the famous nun and pilgrim to Jerusalem in the fourth century (ca. 381-384), paints quite the picture of preparation for Baptism.

The catechumens receive instruction, have exorcisms said over them, and join the community in prayer. They are dismissed at the bowing of the heads.

The catechumens - now neophytes and Baptism and anointing - receive instruction in post-baptismal mystagogy (explanation of the rites or mysteries) on each weekday after Easter, from the bishop himself.

The lectures attributed to St. Cyril of Jerusalem (350-386) - some scholars believe they were written by John, his successor - suggest that the neophytes experienced a program of identity formation.

St. Cyril says that they are fellows of Christ, partakers of his death and resurrection, and are also Christs, Christians, and Christ-bearers (christophoroi).

Egeria’s diary and St. Cyril’s lectures don’t tell us a whole lot about these men and women. We don’t know where they are from, whether or not they are landowners, servants, natives, or pilgrims.

Some hints in the texts suggest that some of them were people of means, with references to gold and participation in recreational activities St. Cyril casts in a dubious light.

The tone of his lectures, and those of some of the other mystagogues of his age (such as St. Ambrose of Milan and St. John Chrysostom), is one of pastoral concern.

St. Cyril is worried for them. He wants them to know that their experiences are real and that resuming the way they lived before could lead to a most bitter enslavement to the evil one.

We don’t really know what it might have been like to walk in their proverbial shoes.

Chances are, though, that some of them, probably most of them, had experienced some kind of trauma.

Sickness, disease, abuse, neglect, abject poverty, violence, war - traumatic experiences were not outliers for fourth-century neophytes.

What would it be like to inquire about the new religious organization centered on Jesus in the empire and to request to be baptized to become a part of this organization?

What would it be like to be told that resuming your old way of life would be awfully dangerous for you?

• To be told that you had died to your old life and risen to a new one?

• To be reminded that you had renounced the devil, his service, his pride, and his pomp, and that this renunciation means you have to live in an entirely new way?

• To commit to a radical change and then living and doing it can be stressful, physically demanding, emotionally painful…and traumatic.

Fast forward to our day.

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Imagine for a moment that you decide, I want to live. To live well. To thrive.

I want to live by committing to Jesus Christ - because he has freed me from the lies of captivity, and in him, I will always be loved.

Imagine what it would be like to face your fears. To renounce:

• Substance abuse;

• Emotional manipulation;

• The lie that millions of likes make up the sum of my value;

• That my best photo represents my true self;

• Body shaming;

• The gross distortion of power in the name of Christ, that humiliating my opponent is a sign of true strength;

• Violence and the demon of the accumulation of wealth.

And to renounce these false demons with a community standing with me, side-by side, and renouncing the devil, his service, his pride, and his pomp with me.

To have someone you can turn to when the demons pop up with their false promises, promising you that it won’t be a quick dopamine high this time, but it will last.

To break up with the one whose lies have proven top be false and thin, and to commit to the one who freed you from the liar and loves you for who you are.

Let me pause for a moment here and speak the truth.

Many people trying like hell to cope with trauma are on their own. Many do not have a community they can easily anchor in, to cope by taking refuge with a loved trust one in a safe space, as Karen O’Donnell explains so powerfully in her book.

Some ask, where is Jesus? Why is he so quiet when I need him most?

He will be present in his body, when the members of his body - the people of the Church, his priests, prophets, and kings - show up to bear witness to their own trauma, and also to those who are not their own, but are on the margins and turn to the Church for assistance.

Many of these members of the body of Christ are coping with their own trauma. They can become living emblems of the traumatized ministering to the traumatized.

Baptism - putting on Christ - makes it possible to thrive with the knowledge that you are loved forever, because the one who loves you will go into the depths of the pit of your worst hell with you, to help you carry that cross.

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The rite of Baptism and everything that comes with it addresses our contemporary life, just as much as it did in the apostolic and late-antique Christians ages.

Baptism provides an opportunity for the traumatized to minister to the traumatized.

Before I open the curtains to show more light on what I mean, let me start with a story.

In August 1996, I was at my parents’ house and answered the phone. I was the first to hear the stunning news that my maternal uncle had died suddenly. No one was home in the age of answering machines. There was no one to DM or text. I had to wait for the family to come home.

My heart leapt immediately to my grandparents.

In 1981, my aunt Lilly died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 30. I remembered my grandparents’ ashen faces when we arrived at the parish rectory in St. Paul, the unusual sight of my grandmother sitting in my grandfather’s chair while he stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder - the same one that bore the scar from a gunshot wound during World War II.

I remembered the intensity of the affair. Priests and deacons lining up in their cassocks to console their brother (grandfather was a priest). The chilling harmony of the refrain sung at the panakhyda and funeral. The thunderous sound of the choir singing the kontakion, “Зо святими упокой,” with the stereotypical double bass descending, and the classical crescendo of the Alleluia completing the plaintive petition that God would grant my young aunt rest with the saints.

Fifteen years later, we were here, again, this time acting as unwilling heralds of their oldest child’s death at 52 - still way, way too young.

The worst part was that grandmother thought we came to surprise them with a picnic lunch. Some surprise.

We brought her nitroglycerin and blood pressure meds for fear of a heart attack.

I watched my grandfather, the old archpriest, waiting for him to cry foul, to scream in protest of the injustice he was suffering.

Small tears formed at the corners of his eyes as he made the sign of the cross and said one word.

“Совершалось.” (It is finished).

It was Saturday. Surely the parish would understand why he couldn’t serve Divine Liturgy tomorrow. I told him that I would call his bishop myself!

He looked at us and said calmly and clearly, “Why wouldn’t I go to church? I will serve liturgy as usual. And we will have a panakhyda for my son.”

Surely he was not thinking clearly. We tried to reason with him. We told him to let someone else lead prayers.

He looked directly at me since I was planning on starting seminary the next year.

“I am going to serve Divine Liturgy and we will pray for my son. And you pray for him in your parish where you will lead the choir. It’s better for me to go to liturgy than to stay home. You’ll see.”

He served liturgy and a panakhyda, not without difficulty.

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Twenty-five years later, there were people giving me the same advice the day after my wife died suddenly at the age of 48. It began not with a phone call, but with the sheriff pounding on my front door at 1:00 a.m. I was scared shitless and my heart was racing beyond belief. Doorbells send off alarms in my body to this day.

So obviously, people would understand if I stayed home on Sunday. Be kind to yourself. And I remembered grandpa. There was some wisdom underpinning the impulse to go to liturgy.

In the days leading up to the liturgy, I was a wreck. The first day I was nauseated all day and could barely eat. My body was in shock. I was overwhelmed by a formidable army of thoughts, voluntary and involuntary. (Who calls their financial advisor and real estate agent the same day their spouse dies unexpectedly?)

The liturgy provided me with a familiar ritual I could perform, a rhythm and pulse of prayer, a moving stream I entered and allowed to guide me. The liturgy was teaching me how to cope with the trauma I had just experienced.

In the next installment, I will begin the process of exploring the relationship between baptism and trauma.

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Do you remember?

Birthdays are supposed to make people feel special, and that was one of your many talents. You set a high bar! You would take the day off and indulge in brunch, a fun activity, and unbelievably savory dinners for your loves ones’ birthdays. You even spent a whole day at Disneyland, humbled yourself on a tiny merry-go-round, and celebrated Frozen! with gusto when we met Anna and Elsa.

So it was a challenge to meet the high mark of your birthdays. You knew it, so you tried to make it easier for us.

Taking you sailing on the Chesapeake Bay was a piece of cake.

Going to the helicopter ride in Hawaii was breathtaking…and quite nauseating, as I recall (I couldn’t stand the smell of the appetizers after).

Many years of slow-smoking pulled pork from Los Angeles to Barnum was fun.

Do you remember your last birthday, the one you had with us?

It was a 2-day affair. We wanted to make it extra special because the world was just starting to open up again toward the end of the pandemic.

First, we went to see Black Widow, our first in-person theater experience followed by dinner at Bellisio’s in Duluth, with their fine wines and sumptuous baskets of bread.

Do you remember the next day?

Brunch at the Vanilla Bean, our favorite breakfast haunt?

Do you remember the summer drought in Minnesota? The rivers and creeks dried out. We were stunned to see Gooseberry Falls…with no falls!

We took two hikes together, tried a new trail, and grabbed this selfie.

The lack of water enhanced the sharp rocks surfacing from the river bed. You allowed me to take a photo of you, perched on the rock, in your favorite place in the world, on your special day. Time stood still then (and that other time, by the eagles’ nest) and we delighted in the good news that things were finally getting better, with many more birthdays to be spent exploring the nooks and crannies of the Superior National Forest.

Maybe we didn’t notice the the dimmed light caused by the smoke from the wildfires and the drought foreshadowing the extinguishing of our life shared together in this world.

Who do you celebrate your birthday with now?

Do the galaxies provide you with smooth rocks in sky-blue rivers for an ethereal selfie that captures the perfect smile that belonged only to you?

Do you think of us when you go to new places?

Do you remember the joy we shared on your last birthday with us, five years ago today?

Love,

Hoosbahnd

Tresja and I delighted in the way my immigrant grandmother pronounced “husband” - she said “hoosbahnd,” while many Slavic immigrants use a “v” for “w” (German influence), so we took to referring to one another as “vife” and “hoobby.”

Also - s/o and credit to Janine Berdin for “What if I miss you for the rest of my life?” Possibly the best contemporary song expressing grief over the loss of a lover.

Except that your stressors snuck into the baggage.

What, you didn’t see self-doubt next to the sunscreen?

The budget shortfall underneath the extra pair of shoes?

The topic you have spent the last four years writing and agonizing about - the war, like a wrinkled shirt that needs to be washed and ironed, sitting uneasily on your carefully folded cassock?

Our struggles travel with us, for free. In my case, the Ukrainians who attended the institute in Volos pricked my conscience yet again. They were in Volos to learn while their families were mourning the latest round of ballistic missiles to shatter homes and take lives.

I’m constantly on edge when I travel, hoping all is okay with my tiny family back home. And when something goes wrong, I go into total freakout mode.

One of my friends from Kyiv shared his anxiety over not being home, even though Ukrainians need to be out and about in the world.

People ask me when and how the war will end, as if my study of religion in Ukraine gave me instant access to answers.

This war, along with the others, will end only when people say, “enough.” Turning our heads away from these wars and hoping they will resolve on their own is taking a wrong turn to a road that circles back to its original point.

Yes, humans have sought to subordinate their neighbors to themselves throughout history and will likely continue to do so. Yes, some Christians justify war on the basis that God has anointed their nation to save the world. The nations making this claim are not defending the world from the devil - they are in service to the evil one, enslaving themselves to a power that leads them into a space of nothingness.

I stumbled upon this church the other night. It was open, so I walked in, and like so many Greek urban churches, it was hot, had a small interior, and provided a rich reminder that we are not alone - God’s saints, his holy and righteous men and women, are with us.

[Heaven and earth are full of your glory…

]

The church was devoted to the Hypapante of Christ, his encounter with the prophet Symeon and prophetess Anna in Luke 2. It is one of my favorite feasts of the Church year, described as “feast of feasts and holy day of holy days” by the priest St. Hesychius of Jerusalem in the fifth century.

Being in this space reminded me that Christ’s reign overcomes the kingdoms of this world - including those who claim to be his anointed ones.

Of greater importance for me, though, is the sword that pierces hearts.

Will Christ be the sword who pierces enough Christian hearts so that they say, “enough is enough,” and push to end these demonic wars?

Will we permit ourselves to be moved enough to demand disarmanent (imagine that!), denuclearization, and renunciation of the dominance proclaimed and sought by today’s world leaders?

Will we push for the “peace from above” with the same passion that we demand the ten commandments be taught in public schools?

It starts here - I have to allow this sword to pierce my own soul first to seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness.

May it be so for us all - through the prayers of St. Symeon, St. Anna, and St. Hesychius.

Observing the daily prayers re-initiates communion with God.

We open in God’s name (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Our prayer is a dialogue with God. We form words and commend ourselves and others to God.

And in prayer, we sit silently and hear God speaking to us.

We have coffee with our spouses, meals with our kids, re-initiating and forming communion with them, even in the most mundane, simple activities.

My child and I fetch our young cat and have a dialogue while we play with the cat. The ritual of play opens the door of dialogue.

And the cat is included in our domestic communion.

What does all of this have to do with praying with strangers? Why can’t I just pray with people I know and am familiar with?

Sometimes, opportunities surface for praying with others. For me, conference travel allows me to pray in churches in the host city.

Urban Churches and Prayer in Motion

North American church seating keeps the people stationary. When praying in a church in an international city, the movement of people can be jarring. Women and men wander around with candles, making the sign of the cross, venerating icons, writing names on prayer lists, bowing to the ground, and sometimes singing refrains and hymns softly.

These actions are usually concurrent with the liturgy, performed in motion at the praying person’s own pace.

A rigorist might object to such devotional acts because the liturgy essentially tells us how and when to pray. We sing the part of the liturgy appointed to us. “Lord, have mercy.” “Most Holy Theotokos, save us.” “Alleluia.” The deacon’s job is to lead us in prayer. “Let us pray to the Lord.” “Wisdom.” “Let be be attentive.” “Stand upright.”

God invites everyone to the liturgy, including rigorists, wanderers, pilgrims, and all who know formal and informal liturgy.

Thessaloniki

I was unable to join today’s assembly in reciting the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and Lord’s Prayer because I do not know these texts in Greek. I have had similar experiences in parishes praying in Georgian, Romanian, and Finnish.

The language barrier is limited. I saw two boys join the chanter’s kliros (singers’ platform) on the right side and heard them join the men in singing “One is Holy.”

I saw two young women on the other side, signing themselves with the cross and showing a baby the icons. Numerous elderly people stood right before the appointed time because they knew when they were supposed to stand. There were other pilgrims who participated fully despite not knowing Greek.

Thessaloniki is close to Sofia and Belgrade, and I have already heard Serbian, Russian, and Ukrainian while out and about in the cities.

This is not my parish and I may never return here, but today I was a part of their community. The priest would ask visitors for their names when they approached for Holy Communion - a form of dialogue that initiates the possibility of communion.

Christian Stranger Danger

Most people did not trust strangers even before the rapid circulation of “stranger danger.” But I believe that taking the step to initiate dialogue with strangers is a crucial and essential step to forming communion. The problem is our discomfort with the likelihood that the stranger won’t think like us. Fr. Alexander Schmemann elaborated on this matter in his monograph, The Eucharist:

I really don’t know the man who is standing across from me in church. I can neither love him nor not love him, for he is a ‘stranger’ and thus no one.

When we refrain from initiating dialogue, we accept and confirm the status quo of alienation. Think of the root of the word. Choosing not to engage with the stranger is acceptable because they are an alien - to us, our way of life, our manners of thinking and doing.

And yet, the Church invites assemblies of aliens (if you will) to dialogue with one another, enough so that some of them leave the assembly feeling that they were a part of the community, and therefore belonged.

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When You are the Alien

The other part of this act of joining a prayer in the community of another city is that you are the alien. You’re the one who doesn’t know how they do things, how you’re expected to dress, whether or not it’s okay to chat here and there, and whether or not they have coffee hour, and if the church is friendly to introverts (another time on this topic, which North American Orthodoxy does not handle well at all).

When the priest looks you in the eye, asks for your name, and then shares God’s body and blood with you, you’re not an alien any longer. You belong.

Imagine for a moment if we sustained some of these dialogues and allowed communion to develop, both in church, but also among the people we interact with in our other communities.

I understand that relationships are complex and that difference can lead to tension and friction, and ultimately fracture. Rupture with others takes place from misunderstanding and ignoring the equal sibling of dialogue - that I will hear my partner as much as I want them to hear me.

But desire is also essential. One has to want to connect with others to the point of sustaining a dialogue, much less initiating it. This is true even of dialogues sustained through texting. We wouldn’t call it ghosting if we didn’t feel like the other person had simply vanished.

I can already hear a chorus of voices protesting because of the harm done to those who revealed their vulnerability to someone else in the spirit of sustaining dialogue and were harmed as a result. I know that pain on my own end, and I also need to repent for the times when I failed to bear witness to those who wanted to sustain dialogue with me.

The pain we feel when communion halts or is fractured is the pain of love. There was communion, and then there wasn’t. We feel pain because unrequited love hurts like hell and stirs up bitterness.

God sees our failed communion and extends his hand to us to re-initiate it - with him and with others, through community. It is possible to start the process all over again and develop a dialogue with love that makes you want to be with the people who received you kindly again.

I think it is absolutely possible for that dialogue of love to quiet the passion of bitterness that afflicts so many of us and leads us to distrust and even hate strangers. The experience of receiving a gesture of love when you’re the guest who is alien to the community hosting you can be a source of great growth and the resurrection of the fountain of love that resides in all of us.

God says that it’s possible (Mt. 19:26).

The question is, do we want to take that step of both being the alien, and also welcoming them?

Postscript: I will reflect on the growing phenomenon of going “no contact” in a future reflection.

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I did not plant a flag in my yard. I’m not having a traditional barbecue. I’m not playing patriotic music (though I can sing the national anthem by memory, and quite nicely, if I may) or eating patriotic pie.

I am not in the US today. I am out of the country, finally keeping a commitment i made many years ago.

I am grateful for America.

I am grateful for the America that welcomed my grandparents and parents on its shores as immigrants to this country in 1953.

I am grateful for the America that bore witness to their stories of surviving the Holodomor, brutal Soviet oppression, and the horrors of the Nazis who occupied Ukraine.

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I am grateful for the America that enrolled us in their public schools and gave us all access to education and labor.

I am grateful to the America that saw public education as a golden opportunity to challenge all students to excel so that someone like my father - who did not have a college degree - could still obtain the skills to become an excellent engineer (thank you, Lane Tech in Chicago).

I am grateful to the America that allowed my family to have loud political arguments on our patio without sending thugs to eliminate enemies of the state because debate keeps you sharp and demands that you view your opponent as your equal.

I am grateful for a country that can produce PhDs from families who live at the poverty level.

I am grateful for a country that welcomes immigrants because they will enrich the people.

I am grateful for the American people who express their values by their deeds - for taking care of their neighbors and making community for those who don’t belong anywhere.

I am grateful for the spectacular American landscape.

I am grateful for the America that has a way of making beautiful music in each and every generation.

I am exceedingly proud that my father and uncle served in the United States armed forces.

I will honor my late wife’s service to America by representing our nation and its commitment to save lives wherever it was needed throughout the world at USAID.

I honor the flag that was wrapped around her coffin and presented to me by the St. Paul Fire Department following a formal escort in 2021 - after she died while serving this country.

I also honor the self-sacrifices of her colleagues, having borne witness to their rigorous commitment to delivering lifesaving aid in horrific emergencies, and will continue to bear witness to the truth of their contributions.

I pledge as an American to celebrate our accomplishments, to contribute to building a democratic nation-state, to learn from our errors, and to repent of our national sins.

God bless you, America, on your 250th birthday.

I close with an instrumental - the inimitable Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner.

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Every American child of immigrants understands the “out-of-place” feeling you have when your family observes traditions that aren’t native. This is why I have given up on trying to explain why Orthodox Pascha usually falls on a different date than Easter. I’ll let Pope Leo and the Orthodox patriarchs work that one out.

For some perspective: I grew up celebrating Christmas on January 7. Lent means saying goodbye to meat and dairy for 40 days. I didn’t pray in English until I was in my 20s. Oh, and my grandfather was the pastor of our emigre Ukrainian Orthodox parish in St. Paul, MN. A lot of kids tuned out of the Divine Liturgy. But not my older brother and me. Church captivated us. The chanting, incense, emigre piety, but above all, a sense that we were part of something much larger, much older, and much, much more resilient than anything else we had encountered.

To be honest, everyone in my family thought my brother would be a priest. I joined him on my grandparents’ staircase when we sang the Trisagion and gave our grandparents holy communion, “playing” church. I sang in the choir as a teenager, but was obsessed with sports and girls, and went to church to please my parents.

Something happened at 18. I had this deep urge to pursue ministry. I can’t explain it other than it was a voice from within, something saying, “go to seminary.” Or maybe someone was saying it.

“I didn’t see that coming.”

I collected information on the Orthodox seminaries in North America, and then my family poured cold water on my plans. You see, children of immigrants have a duty to advance beyond their parents. We needed to become engineers, doctors, or successful business people. Not priests! My grandfather was completely opposed to my plan, and my mother marshaled the spirits of all ethnic mothers in history through guilt. “How could you abandon us!” Her most common refrain was, “don’t ruin your life.” My grandfather told me privately to make sure I found a good wife. He spoke very little English, and when he did, you would listen, because it was important. Knowing the Orthodox church’s strict rules on the married priesthood - you can marry once before you’re ordained, but not after, he said, “no hurry up.” (these rules are softening now).

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I enrolled in seminary in 1997. I was engaged to be married in 1998 and my fiancee and I were checking out possible parish openings. And then I wasn’t engaged any more (my fault, because of my immaturity).

“I didn’t see that coming.”

I did eventually marry, in 2002, and my wife was on board with ordination. Once I was a deacon and she had a taste of life as the minister’s spouse, she asked me to delay ordination to the priesthood. We found one reason after another to postpone ordination. The postponement became semi-permanent. I told a dear friend that I was giving up. He said, “you never know. You can only resist the Holy Spirit for so long. God will eventually find you.”

I didn’t believe it. It seemed to be God’s will that I not be a priest. I settled into my cushy academic life and postponed it.

In 2021, as we were creeping out of the pandemic, my wife told me that she was ready for me to be a priest. My heart leapt with joy.

The next week, while on a disaster response in Haiti, she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. She died after six hours. [At another time, I will share my experience of reading the medical report - pure horror].

“I didn’t see that coming.”

While you might not think about fixing your family unit while you’re picking up the pieces from devastating death, others do. A number of people told me that I was too young to be alone and should get remarried. People in the church reminded me of our rules. I was not eligible to remarry as a widowed deacon. I would be deposed from the diaconate if I remarried.

Advice arrived like mail - some useful, some unsolicited, and a lot of junk. One if/then proposition after another. “If you don’t remarry, you’ll be lonely.” “If you don’t remarry, your daughter will grow up without a Mom.” Some old refrains rose from the dead - “don’t ruin your life.”

That period of time was truly a crucible. Learning how to form a new life when your beloved spouse, the one with whom you made “one flesh” in God’s blessed sacrament was taken from you, is filled with painful growing pains. I kept serving as a deacon during that time and felt very much at home in church, but I did feel out of place, because the road was lonely. I felt overwhelmed by the challenge and asked for a leave of absence from ministry, which my bishop mercifully granted.

I ended up returning to church and serving as a deacon before the leave had expired. It wasn’t just a matter of familiarity - ministry was one way I sensed I could bear witness to the truth that Jesus Christ has come to save humankind out of love - and to do so with the ripe knowledge of our finite time on earth. No more seconds could be spared. Nothing was more urgent than preaching the arrival of God’s kingdom.

In prayer, with plenty of fear and trepidation, I petitioned my bishop for ordination to the priesthood. Doubt surrounded me in the months that followed because ordination does not solve everyday personal struggles of self-doubt, health problems, and, in my case, acute periods of loneliness. I was in a frightening car accident on Christmas eve 2024. My car was completely totaled. I was almost completely uninjured. That seems impossible - I should be dead. Instead, I walked away.

“I didn’t see that coming.”

The ordination happened on January 18, 2025. I was a priest! And lo! After about a month-long honeymoon period, self-doubt returned in force. I was acutely aware of my own shortcomings, my unworthiness, the weakness of my flesh, the slothfulness of spirit. What had I done?! Maybe my mother was right and I had ruined my life.

“I didn’t see that coming.”

The rite of ordination includes a formula intoned by the bishop as he lays his hands on the ordinand’s head:

The divine grace, which always heals that which is infirm and completes that which is lacking, ordains the most devout Deacon (name) to the office of Priest. Let us, therefore, pray for him, that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit may come upon him.

Ministry is not about me. God is the one in charge, drawing people throughout the world to his covenant of love. People bring their problems with them, so ministry is not easy. There is no way to avoid pitfalls and challenges. They’re a lot like grief - you can’t set it aside or get “over” it - you can only move forward with and through it.

There was always a reason for me to say one of two things to the possibility of ordination to the priesthood: either, “I’m not worthy,” or “not now.”

Maybe I thought that God would let me be. And to be completely honest here, of all the possible paths for me after my wife died, priestly ministry was among the least likely.

So, no, “I didn’t see that coming.”

What I learned from this experience is something the Church has been teaching me since I heard her singing in my mother’s womb. We may waver, question, stray, and sin, sometimes even grievously. Through it all, God is constant in his steadfast love, his mercy “endures forever,” he doesn’t change his mind. He just waited for me to say yes.

This divine grace does indeed heal that which is infirm - and it doesn’t give me the gift of foresight. I know that there will be many other things that I don’t see coming. And this is true for you, too.

May God whose glorious longsuffering we have all borne witness to grant us strength and grace to cling to hope, and the courage to say yes, even when we can’t see more than a few feet of the path before us.

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What is it like? Here are a few reflections to give you a sense of my new normal.

1. Let me begin with a cautionary note. No two people are alike. Another man who became a widower on the same day as me will have his own experience. My environment shaped my new normal.

2. Life has been stressful and most often too challenging. The closest family member lives two states away and has their own challenges. I don’t have any best friends. I found that I had to do pretty much everything by myself.

   1. I learned that this is true for many people. We are a community of people who reject fairy tales of villages forming around widows.

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3. The solo part of it has upsides and downsides. I cannot account for all of them because I am discovering these all of the time. Example - I have to find someone to drive me when I need medical treatment that prohibits me from driving home. For reference, I have been paying for drivers for my kid when I can’t take her somewhere.

4. That leads directly to the next issue. How can you get away as a single widowed parent with no family nearby and no besties? Again, I paid people. Eventually, age made it possible for me to go on trips.

5. Solo vacas are a staple of the new normal. Pluses: you’re the sole governor of your own excursions. I had a lot of fun on a boat tour of Resurrection Bay in Seward (Alaska) and on the wine tour in Florence. Yes, it gets lonely. I am capable of eating out alone. Sometimes, though, it feels like the other patrons’ eyes are piercing your soul.

   

6. I seldom eat out now.

7. One of the downsides of solo vacas is outdoor activities. If I get hurt on a hike and biking, I’m screwed.

   1. Coping technique that works for me on solo vacas - do something spontaneous if loneliness gets suffocating. Stay in with junk food and binge watch. Take yourself shopping. One day I went fishing and on another, I got savory food at an ethnic deli.

8. Sometimes, I receive messages that piss me off. Most people wouldn’t notice it. “You’re invited to dinner. Please bring your spouses!” I see the extra invisible sentence: “you’re going to be the fifth wheel, dude.” No, thanks.

9. There is no such thing as recovering from grief. The only way for grief to leave would be to stop feeling and loving.

10. Grief changes so that it doesn’t govern your life. I became functional and social. I could be at a social event and be completely normal and have a surge of sadness run through me just for hearing a song. I could be enjoying a conversation and feeling sad at the very same time.

11. I can go without crying or feeling the void of loss for a month, even longer.

12. And then, I might cry for several consecutive days.

13. Both 11 and 12 are normal and healthy.

14. Grief doesn’t dry out the capacity to love. I am perfectly capable of loving and being loved. I in fact love another person and can be their companion even when I feel sad.

15. American society’s stigma on adult singlehood is just sad. Look at the literature - most of it is advice for widowed dating. Being single is just as normal and legit as being married. And being single might be good for some of us who are trying to learn how to live again. A member of the clergy who is single isn’t necessarily destined to be a monastic, though that can happen - it’s between them and God (and their bishop!). And a widow or widower who finds love again and remarries is a source of joy. There are many good and blessed paths after the death of a spouse.

16. Widowhood has been physical for me. I am feeling tired these days, I think because working and single parenting have made for a challenging combination. I am worried about this.

17. Do not underestimate the degree to which widowhood can harm one’s health. Wounds to the heart have very serious implications for physical health. It means you have to put yourself first, no matter what.

18. Comparisons are useless. I don’t know what it’s like to be divorced because I’m not divorced. Some experiences of divorcees sound unimaginably hard - to tell your kids that you are splitting up - to learn of an affair - to hear that the person you chose doesn’t want you any more. I did NOT experience that and don’t know what it’s like. I also don’t know what it’s like to share custody and have a free weekend. I don’t necessarily think that experiencing widowhood is worse than being divorced - they both suck.

19. I can see why God was pissed at the people of Judea for neglecting orphans and widows. There have been some social security benefits that will elapse when my kid finishes high school, and that is going to hurt. I think a handful of churches have ministries for widows, but even my own church has a program for clergy widows - and this is very good - but no group I know of for clergy widowers. (I need a symbol that denotes I think I know why that is and can’t say it).

20. Magical thinking is pure fantasy. Religious people are among the worst offenders in perpetuating it. The common refrain that “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is pure BS. Plenty of people have “more than they can handle” in life. I know a lot of widows and widowers whose loneliness is overwhelming. There is no quick fix, no app, because you can’t force social chemistry.

21. I feel like I woke up from a weird dream and saw the world as it really is. People are hurting. People are stumbling through life, bearing burdens of brokenness in all of its forms - abuse, financial strains, illnesses, homelessness, relationship problems, abject loneliness. They’re doing their best to stumble through life. I hear their stories differently now. I can tell you that they appreciate your ears and your companionship!

22. One of the things I am learning is that I have more power than I think. Something truly awful happened five years ago, and something wonderful could happen tomorrow. I am learning how to remind myself that, for the most part, the only person who can stop me is me.

23. My wife’s death changed me, but it didn’t kill me. I’m really glad I’m alive, I still enjoy life, and I also really like people.

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I have been thinking about my parents and grandparents a lot in these past weeks. I have also been thinking about my own relationship with my child, looking both consciously and perhaps unconsciously for behavioral patterns where I am actually my Dad in a conversation, an outing, and so on.

These interactions form us for life. Arguments, disputes, punishments, neglect, abuse, and sin - both voluntary and involuntary - contributes to our formation and the way we cope with stress and relate to others.

I am a big believer in therapy and recent sessions have brought me back in time to childhood events. There is one truth I want to share here, and I do so knowing that most of you know it as well as I do:

We are the only ones who can fix ourselves.

My parents died some time ago - Dad at the age of 61 in 2005 and Mom at the age of 70 in 2017. We might be able to resolve some things among us were we to talk them out. But even then, I am the one who has to do the hard work of healing myself. And part of that healing is be me, my authentic self, today.

The absence of authenticity has caused me to sin. I’m thinking of a person I hurt a long time ago now, because I chose obeying someone else’s will rather than trusting my own. I wish I could make amends to them in some meaningful way. Again, many of us are probably in the same proverbial boat.

Maybe the best expression of contrition and commemoration is to heal myself.

Jesus is the physician of our souls and bodies. I believe that some of the deeds and acts he performed mentioned by St. John at the end of the gospel include liberating people from patterns of behaving only to gain another’s favor and approval. Maybe he said something like, “go and be free from the tyranny of seeking the approval of others. Be you - and sin no more.” I am not claiming this - but I would like to believe it.

We all do the best we can from love for our families. May God free us from the darkness of self-destructive patterns so that we may be our true selves - and grant us the spirit of peace to make good memories with our loved ones for however many years we have remaining as earth-dwellers.

Jesus’ Ascension is one of the great feasts of the Church. And yet, we seem to be a bit melancholy when Ascension comes. This is counterintuitive, even if we are not singing the Paschal hymns until next year.

The Church offers the following thanksgiving as part of its offering to God the Father, at every Divine Liturgy:

Remembering this saving commandment and all those things which have come to pass for us: the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Sitting at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming […] Offering unto thee thine own of thine own, on behalf of all and for all […] We praise Thee…

This is the Church’s thanksgiving offering every time we gather for the Divine Liturgy, even on a weekday in the wee hours of the morning that we have forgotten from some time ago. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who offers it for us and with us.

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We give thanks for two marvelous acts of our Lord that we remember today as an annual commemoration. His Ascension into heaven and his sitting at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus Christ, like us in every way except for sin (Heb. 4:15), true God of true God, incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, ascends to heaven, risen from the dead and still bearing the wounds in his hands, his feet, his side, and, we might say truthfully and reverently, in his heart.

The one who loved and loves us, who entreated us to come to him with our woes because his yoke is easy and his burden light (Mt. 11:28-30), brings our woes with him to heaven. He becomes our person, our advocate, our friend during his eternal session (sitting) at God’s right hand.

Imagine that you have a most urgent task to be completed, one with the highest stakes for your life. To whom would you entrust this task? The person you trust the most, your dearest friend, your closest confidant.

Friends, believe me when I tell you that I know loneliness, and I feel abandonment. I find it hard to trust others.

Jesus Christ, my Lord and yours too, invited me to be his servant, his friend, his brother, the child of his Father when I was baptized and anointed. He is always with me and you every time we gather in his name, hear his word proclaimed, and receive his body and blood.

We can trust our Lord Jesus with our innermost woes, troubles, and anxieties.

Today, on this and every day, he remembers us and brings our woes to God, the very woes we have entrusted to him in our confidence. This is his session (sitting) at the right hand - to be our advocate before God (Hebrews - pick a chapter!).

This is why the Ascension feast is good news, and not sad. Jesus Christ is always ours and we are always and forever his. He represents all of us - as the human born of the Virgin Mary - before God. We can be assured that his testimony before God is true, and more than that - filled with his love for us.

Let us therefore be thankful and filled with joy for his ascension to heaven and his sitting at God’s right hand. He is raising all of us to heaven with him. Our task is to spend our days sustaining our covenant with him by hearing his word and praying to him.

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This week, I blessed my wife’s grave. The cemetery is the most tangible way of being near her. This is logical. We are embodied, physical beings who live on earth. We know and experience through touch, sight, sound, smell.

I can remember the smells of my father’s bathroom, his distinct after shave. I even remember the smell of my grandfather’s 1969 Buick LeSabre, along with the sound of his loud nasal breathing while he drove.

These encounters were both personal and embodied.

And yet, the Christian tradition challenges us to see the whole picture.

God sends an angel who asks the myrrhbearing women at the tomb, “why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Lk. 24:5).

The Lord challenges us to see the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Communion is another word for community. The communion of the Holy Spirit is the dwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all of the people of God - the communion of saints, adopted by God through Baptism and anointing.

God asks me to trust that my wife, my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle are alive in Christ. And I am with them in a new way every time earth meets heaven, during the Divine Liturgy.

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We might appeal to our finite nature, our current state of human life with its senses. Can’t I see my parents again, or hug my wife? In the grief that remains with me until the appointed time of my transitus, I yearn for one last daylong date with my wife. Brunch. A lazy walk on a beach. Dinner with steak and fine wine.

C.S. Lewis provides a prophetic reality check in A Grief Observed on the folly of desiring the return of those in Abraham’s bosom to our world:

This theological truth shatters our childish dreams, but they might not make us feel much better. It is very hard to feel the presence of the ones we love. They are near, to be sure, and we are together every time earth and heaven meet.

I am still a student in the school that teaches this particular spiritual sense, so I write somewhat clumsily here.

Our connection with our departed loved ones is similar to venerating an icon. We are communicating with people who are alive, but whose nature we cannot apprehend. The space separating us from their nature does not stop us from speaking to them.

And I dare to say that most of you, like me, are pupils in this school of spiritual senses. You continue to yearn for the familiar, what you knew as a child - your father’s laugh, your mother’s smile, your spouse’s embrace. God has given you (and me) the capacity to be with them spiritually - especially during the Divine Liturgy, but even in daily life. He bestowed this gift to us through the grace of baptism by water and the Holy Spirit and the anointing with Chrism.

A part of us will always yearn for what once was in the past. It was good because it was forged from God’s love for us all. But we need not use all of our energy hearkening back - we remain firmly planted here on earth and we are the body of Christ, past, present, and future. In the present, we offer a precious gift drawn from consolation: we bear witness to the power of God’s love that pierces through death and sustains bonds with our loved ones.

We can hope also for the reunion to come in the future when he will wipe away our tears and deliver us from death by giving us the life in Christ promised to his people. This experience will be one of the body as well as the soul and spirit.

Isn’t that a most marvelous promise? And aren’t the very best things worth waiting for? Isn’t it possible only because of love?

May God give us the strength to endure the finite nature of this life and the grace to learn how to sense the real presence of our loved ones when we gather in his name.

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Postscript for the academically inclined. See the study on the spiritual senses co-edited by Frederick Aquino and Paul Gavrilyuk.

More than 4.5 year ago, I kissed her goodbye as she left for a 5-week international disaster response trip. We would plan the holidays and try the new Ethiopian restaurant in town when she returned.

I saw her nine days later, after they opened the wood casket for me in a private viewing room at the funeral home.

You resume normal everyday activities at some point. Working, exercising, cooking, parenting, socializing, church ministry. You might look the same, but your life is different. You suffered heart damage, It didn’t kill you, but it changed your life forever.

Normal socializing suggests regular interactions with men and women every day. But it’s never really “normal.”

A tour of a winery where you are the only one going solo.

Solo attendance at school events.

An invitation to a social event that ends with “please bring your spouse.” (I was out after that addendum because I was immediately the fifth wheel).

I have found ways to enjoy life. Solo restaurant dining is not a problem. The winery tour was actually fun. I have a newfound and revised love for upper midwestern lake life.

What hasn’t changed is a deep longing to be with her. To share those life moments. To this day, I occasionally think reflexively, “I can’t wait to tell her all about this.”

Occupying yourself with work and necessary personal business is part of normal living. 2026 has been intense, with surgery, some white-knuckled medical tests, a painful professional trial, and a joyous breakthrough in priestly ministry. Not to mention college visits with the kid.

It’s a lot. And it was distracting me from the one thing I want - to be with her.

I can’t have that - not now, anyway, though I refuse to dismiss the possibility that we can have some marital “dates” in the afterlife, even if stuffy theologians might mock my youthful dreams.

You can only suppress grief and the pain that comes with it for so long. I let grief come in the door yesterday, or rather, grief forced it open past my tired defenses. I had to spend some time with that pain of yearning not to be fulfilled, not now, anyway.

I know that God has solved this problem for me and I just need to wait.

I just wish, sometimes, that God would send someone other than grief to hang with me in the waiting room we call earth.

But I am still learning that grief is the angel of love. And maybe grief is telling me that she feels the pain of separation, too. I would really like to know.

Grief arrived unannounced yesterday and will be spending some time with me.

Let her in. Because grief’s surprise is that she is an angel of love. Godly love.

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