The name on the grave marker

There's a common expression: "the final nail in the coffin."

It means the end of something, right? To use another idiom, the final nail in the coffin is also "the last straw."

Well a coworker aptly said that seeing the name on the grave marker is the true "final nail in the coffin."



There are a lot of final nails in the coffin for grief. Watching your father take his last breath, seeing his body carted out of the house, seeing him lying in the coffin, seeing the coffin carried out of the hearse and to his final resting place are all "nails in the coffin."

But nothing is quite the unexpected sucker punch to the gut that getting this photo emailed to you is.

I'd change the idiom if I could, from "nail in the coffin" to "name on the gravestone."

Seeing your father's name carved in stone- his gravestone - brings about a finality like nothing else. His body is no longer hidden away in the ground. His death is labeled, carved out, complete. His life began on February twentieth, nineteen sixty, and ended abruptly on November eighth, two thousand seventeen.

The end.

People have said the gravestone is beautiful. And I guess if it had some other name there, it would be. Romans 8:1 is the most comforting gospel passage in scripture. It's true for my dad. He is in Christ. There is no condemnation for him.


But really, there's nothing beautiful about it. There's nothing beautiful about death. There's nothing beautiful about his body being buried underneath that stone. There's nothing beautiful about the finality of his life on earth.

That gravestone is as cold and hard and permanent. There's no escaping the reality of his death when with it staring you in the face.

And that's what grief is- trying to ignore, change, fight and rationalize that hideous reality. The ugly truth that is the death of your father.

And there's nothing beautiful about it.