LETTERS TO PETER

      On the Journey from Grief to Wholeness

      Copyright © 2010 Donald E. Mayer. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      isbn 13: 978-1-60899-104-4

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Mayer, Donald E.

      Letters to Peter : on the journey from grief to wholeness / Donald E. Mayer, with Prologue by Herb Anderson and Epilogue by Walter Brueggemann.

      xx + 174 p. ; 23 cm.

      isbn 13: 978-1-60899-104-4

      1. Grief—Religious aspects. 2. Bereavement. 3. Children—Death—Psychological aspects. 4. Pastoral theology. I. Anderson, Herbert, 1936–. II. Brueggemann, Walter. III. Title.

      bf575.g7 m43 2010

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      “Don Mayer’s Letters to Peter is not only a touching and very engaging book, it is also a magnificent example of effective grief work. Starting out with sorrow and rage he progresses to serious contemplation of the deeper questions of life, death, and healing. He allows the reader to experience this very personal journey of healing. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has or even hasn’t experienced this kind of grief and loss.”

      —Susan Koch, retired schoolteacher

      “Some ministers leave people wondering if they are actually real human beings or just someone playing a role. Though we never doubted the reality of Don’s humanity, this volume confirms it’s depth, grace, and passion.”

      —Anthony B. Robinson, author of Common Grace

      “Don Mayer’s eloquent letters to his dead son express many of the conflicting feelings that we share when a beloved person dies: debilitating grief, overwhelming sadness, continuing disbelief, persistent loneliness. But also anger at the absent person, anger at those whose efforts to offer comfort may be clumsy or tactless, anger at God. Gradually, Don’s letters reveal a path to acceptance, and even gratitude, through the redemptive power of family, friends, music, prayer, ordinary activities, and faith in the One who has ‘been our dwelling place in all generations.’”

      —Susan Delanty Jones, retired lawyer and parent who lost a young child

      To Lynnea, Linda, and Chelsey,

      With love, admiration and gratitude,

      And for Tim and Sue, Sarah and Jim

      And the cousins: Miles and Erin,

      Hannah and Peter.

      And thanks to ‘first editor’

      Ulrike Guthrie!

      I looked, and a scroll was stretched out before me . . . and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe. And he said to me, ‘eat this scroll.’ . . . Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was sweet as honey.

       (Ezekiel 2:9—3:3)

      Preface

      In the spring of 1998 our son Peter was killed in an auto accident, plunging his wife, Linda, their five-year-old daughter, Chelsey, and all of our family into relentless, painful grief. This book is an account of that grief—and of what helped us to move though the “shadow of death” into fullness of life once more. In my career as a pastor I am accustomed to responding to similar events in others’ lives. It is usually in writing, often in a sermon for a memorial service. Thus it is not surprising that I wrote a piece for the memorial service for Peter.

      What is different about that memorial piece is that it was not addressed to the people gathered for the memorial. It was addressed to Peter. And it was the first of a series of letters I felt compelled to write to Peter expressing my grievous, pain-filled response to his death.

      Except for the letter read at Peter’s memorial service, each letter was addressed exclusively to Peter. At first, I shared the letters only with my wife, Lynnea, and our widowed daughter-in-law, Linda. Now I offer these letters to you. While each situation of loss is unique, you may find much in these letters that resonates with your own experience. It would not be true to say that everyone belongs to a company of believers. But it is true that at some time all of us belong to a company of grievers.

      In the first section of the book the letters are in effect a day-by-day journal of the grief of a mom and dad for a deceased son. In the second section of the book, I explore what helped us to grieve well, probing the mystery of how comfort and fullness of life do come to us—in spite of the neverending loss of our son.

      Tears and anger, doubt and fear, pain and “if-onlys” are all present here, as they no doubt also are in your particular grief. But you will also see here the attention of caring friends, and a repeated decision to trust in a God who pays attention to us and cares.

      Years ago in a long dark winter I was often sustained by the hope that my painful experience might someday be helpful to someone else. Now in that hope I offer to you these letters to Peter.

      Prologue

      herbert anderson

      This collection of letters from a father to his son after the son’s tragic and untimely death is a bold invitation to reconsider grief in several significant ways.

The experience of absence and the feeling of emptiness are common in grief. The loss of someone we love leaves a hole in the soul that can never be filled. “It would be nonsense,” Dietrich Bonheoffer once wrote, “to say that God fills the gap; God doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary, keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.”1 In the absence of someone we love, we tell stories of his or her past presence in our lives. The pain of this remembering includes an increased awareness of absence, the permanent “never-to-be-ness” of death. Eventually, as the grief diminishes, one becomes more accustomed to the presence of absence.

Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff is another account of a father’s grief over a son’s untimely death as a result of a mountain-climbing accident at age twenty-five.2 The book is testimony to a