Pete Holmes, Stephen Colbert — and God
Where is Jon? Jon died on February 19, 2021. That’s more than a year ago. And I still can’t bear to think of my husband with any kind of specificity or clarity. Thinking of Jon, visualizing him, picturing him as he once was, in the flesh, devastates me, it brings me to howling tears.
That’s because thinking of flesh-and-blood Jon causes me to think of non-Jon. The gone Jon. The Jon who is no more. The Jon who evaporated into nothingness on a hospital bed late on a Friday afternoon fourteen months ago.
Jon is gone. He is nothing.
Or is he?
This Is Easter
This is Easter. And Easter is when Christians celebrate Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Jesus was dead. And then he wasn’t.
Was Jon dead — and then not dead?
That’s the promise of Christianity (and of many of the world’s wisdom traditions, each in its own way). That is the promise — that Jon is not dead.
But for me, most of the time, any promise of an afterlife is too big and fat and wondrous to believe.
The widow of a dear friend of Jon’s sent me an Easter card this week. Her husband and mine had laughed a lot together over the years. She tells me that she imagines the two men enjoying each other’s company now, somewhere, just as they always had
I can’t do that.
Colbert Interviews Holmes
The other night I watched Pete Holmes get interviewed by Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, and I was struck dumb by the words that Holmes let fall (I think he was channeling Joseph Campbell). “Who you really are was never born, will never die, and can’t be harmed.”
“That’s beautiful,” Colbert said.
Wow, I thought. Pete Holmes, Stephen Colbert — and God? Those two no-nonsense guys believe that stuff. Maybe I could as well.
I’m my father’s daughter, though. I don’t know whether my father was an atheist; he never said as much, and I never had the temerity to ask. But I do know that the great life lesson he wanted to pass on to me and my brothers was, “Don’t kid yourself.”
Dead Is Dead
I have taken my father’s caveat to mean, face the facts. There’s no way to be alive once your body is dead.
Which is why I avoid prayer these days. Opening myself up to God might get results. It might make the reality of the Christian promise all too real — or all too false, hopeless and vain.
A few weeks after Jon died, I finally got around to praying. I’m a practicing Christian. I belong to a church. My husband of 44 years had died. It seemed I should pray.
No sooner had I turned my attention to God than the assurance arrived, unbidden — Jon was with God.
It felt true in the moment. But I’ve had plenty of moments since then when that assurance has eluded me.
So, mostly I avoid God. Because if I were to pose the where-is-Jon question again, I might get a different answer. It might be, “Jon is nowhere.”
I can’t live with that thought. And my plan is to keep on living.
There’s more about my wrestlings with God in my 2015 book, which got nice reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. If you’d like to hear from Jon first-hand, check out his guest post, “Does ‘Under God’ Belong in the Pledge of Allegiance?”
Here is Jon, very much alive, sailing the Douro River in Portugal a few years ago. His posture, the way he purses his lips and holds his hands — the details break my heart. Photo by Barbara Newhall
I truly LOVE your honesty!! I am saving all of these in my OWN little folder because you really have given a picture of early widowhood that is so clear and relates the pain and the wondering….and the wandering thoughts & questions and diversions …..which, no matter where they go or how long they last….always somehow come back to the incredible sense of LOSS. YOU, now really KNOW what the Bibllical language means when it talks about MARRIAGE as “The two become one”…..AND you know that that is both a real and wonderful BLESSING…..and a painful curse. What you also know, I am sure, is that there are SO SO MANY of your friends and acquaintances that have never and will never experience what you are going through…..because they never let that “oneness” happen the way you did in the years long before Jon died. It may not FEEL that way, but, really, Barbara, you are blest!
Jim, I remember your phone call soon after Jon died and how you mentioned “two becoming one.” I was skeptical at the time — as I had been throughout my years of marriage to Jon about the “two becoming one” idea. But now, I am seeing it’s true. Something is gone. Something is missing.
But you are right, Jon and I were lucky to have each other. And thanks again for being the one to bless that union.
This is lovely Barbara and thanks for being so true to who you are. I feel people who have left the planet sometimes but I don’t imagine they are anywhere specific, so they must still be in a piece of my heart. I talk to them. I’ve read a lot of Joseph Campbell. He was a very wise man.
I have to say, I still find it hard, impossible, to talk to Jon without falling into tears. I don’t have that solace. Yet.
I believe Holmes is a Buddhist, hence “God” may not be what he has in mind when he discusses post-worldly existence. Colbert is Catholic, of course. I appreciate your willingness to grieve so publicly.
Right. I got the feeling from Holmes’ conversation with Colbert that he was open to all expressions of the divine. He said (I wrote this down at the time!), “I don’t believe in an old man in the sky… I believe in a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all categories of human thought, including being and non being.”
I think Holmes was quoting Joseph Campbell here. I don’t know what Holmes or Campbell meant by this, but I am thinking that that “metaphor” refers to Jesus, the Buddha, and many Hindu deities. Those various and particular manifestations of the divine are metaphors, comprehensible to humans, of Something that is beyond human understanding.
The bottom line for me was that it was refreshing and reassuring to me to hear two tough-minded, thoughtful people having some faith and hope in… Something.
I have been following and appreciating you, Barbara, since your visit to Orinda Books to promote your wonderful “Wrestling With God” book. You are being heard… you are sharing your heart and mind with so many caring others… we thank you. I wish I could give you some instant clarity… a magic wand to make everything make sense….. But all that I can say is that God is here… He/She is patient and understanding. Love yourself as your dear Jon loved and cared for you: he lives on in / with you in that way.
Thanks for the encouraging, hopeful words. Much needed right now.
Hi Barbara,
FWIW, I have read a handful of books that all say the same thing… the authors passed over temporarily and came back with the same assurance… our loved ones are not gone, but rather are still present in some alternate reality., and we will see them again. But so difficult now for sure… You can still talk to him.
Talk to Jon? I wish I could.
Indeed life is hard dealing with death. Know that though we havre no “answer” we can assure we love YOU for as long as we are able.
It’s the friends that are keeping me going!!!!
Thank you, Barbara, for wearing your heart on your blog. It has helped me so much this past year. You are a wonderful writer.
Thank you, Nancy. Writing helps. A little.