My father, a holy man full of gentle power, passed away last month at age 88 in hospice care in Vermont. A recent series of falls, rapid weakening of his body. It all happened too fast.

Yet: Those final days, standing vigil in PPE clothing at his bedside with my brother as Dad stood at the border between earth and heaven. Care and humor pouring out from him as it always did, as he struggled to speak. His eyes opening one last moment before death as if gazing at another reality. Hearing him take his final breath. All holy ground. And what a gift I had received, to live with Dad four months when the pandemic erupted last year.

But I didn’t realize how painful it would be not only to lose Dad, but to now have both Mom and Dad departed. Lost in grief at times, I remember previous losses, especially the deaths of too many friends too early, each of whom had a huge impact on my life. Lem Tucker, president of Voice of Calvary Ministries in Mississippi, who promoted me to responsibility at an early age, and changed me by this motto he lived: “he who has the greatest truth, must have the greatest love, which is the greatest proof.” My dear friend and ministry partner Spencer Perkins, who died at age 44, twenty-three years ago today. Soon after someone said, “Chris, you have lost three limbs: yokefellow, community, ministry.” Mentor John Alexander, who with his wife Judy literally saved me from myself with the powerful message of grace. Gloria Lotts of our intentional Christian community in Mississippi who, at a moment when my sin became painfully visible to all, got up, crossed the room, and embraced me. Glen Kehrein of Circle Urban Ministries in Chicago, a fellow “white boy in the ‘hood” at the time, who so deeply understood me.

Each death took a toll, immediately diminishing me. And yet. Over the years, something else happened. And from that “something else,” as I so painfully miss my father, I take hope. Which I tried to express in this poem.

On the Resurrection of the Body

Without that beloved singular one,
Who would I be?        
With each death, a part of my body departed:
Life normal, after never the same.
Ripped away, irreplaceable, always, right there,
An absence for that one only.

Yet sometimes, seemingly in solitude,
I find one of them in my presence,
Feeling very words they would say,
With what look, touch, tone.
And I remember terrains of growth since that after,
As if their essence was forever grafted into the now:
Left behind,
Yet joined, and living.

Chris Rice is director of the Mennonite Central Committee United Nations Office in New York City. He is co-author of More Than Equals and Reconciling All Things.