If Not “Dead,” Then What Do We Call Them?

It is ironic that we, who can hardly roll out of bed in the morning, call those now filled with heightened joy, peace and power merely "dead." There has to be a better word.

Photo by Kyle Cleveland on Unsplash

Tis the season for spooky things. Last year, I took, my boys to a scary ride at an amusement park. After the creepy, death-saturated, designed-to-terrify ride had ended, Sam told me “I didn’t like that, Dad. It teaches the opposite of what happens after death.”

He’s right, of course…from the mouth of babes. But amidst a cultural onslaught of ghoulish costumes, horror movies, spook alleys, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, who can resist seeing death and dying as anything more than ominous, foreboding and dark?

We can. Believers in the One who triumphed over death - and all of the other nightmares that consume our hearts and minds today.

“Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” - Paul to the Corinthians

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For understandable reasons, the thought of death is something most of us studiously avoid.

Until we can’t anymore. Even if the day we’ll each be confronted with our own mortality seems far off, the loss of someone we love presses that point big time.I’ve been thinking a lot more about death and dying since my daughter’s passing.

For the many throughout this war-torn world barely holding onto life, they have to think about it every day. But in America, we’re privileged not to have to think too much about it. Indeed, too much focus on death can be seen almost automatically as morbid - better reserved for spooky, Halloween movies, and invoking mental health welfare concerns (“so, you say you’ve been thinking a lot more about death - are you doing okay?”)

But that’s not how I - and millions of believers the world over - feel about death at all.

• It’s a change, not an end.

• It’s a transition, not a termination.

• And rather than goodbye forever, it’s more of a temporary separation, with meaningful experiences and relationships continuing beyond (and across) the veil (which is the word we use for the blinders the rest of us carry on our day-to-day sight, mostly unable to see the reality of a spiritual world all around us where life and love continues on).

So, I perked up reading a 2015 comment from the lovely Wendy Watson Nelson that “those on the other side of the veil are very much alive, and not all that cheerful about being called ‘dead.’”

Language in temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already shifted to reflect this inspired insight - still very much focused on serving those who have gone beyond, but no longer specifying that this person is “dead.” (By way of explanation, one inspired Bishop said, “the phrase ‘who is dead’ is gone because they are not gone.”)

So then, what should we call these dear ones? 

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When my brother Sam died in 2002, one text that most comforted me came from one of my heroes, Alma, an ancient American prophet (and former rebel without a cause): 

Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. (italics my own)

I believed this about Sam and my Mom too, who passed from cancer a decade after Sam died. And I believe it now about our dear baby girl. My friend Geno said in a tender note that Emma had been received “with the most loving and comforting embrace” and that she can “finally experience peace throughout her entire being and existence.”

When was the last time you felt “peace throughout your entire being and existence” or rested from “all your troubles and from all care, and sorrow”?

Ummmm. Maybe never for me, at least not completely?

In the book, “After,” Dr. Bruce Greyson describes studying near death experiences for years from outside of any religious belief system - and finding over and over how those who have these experiences describe themselves as feeling more alive than they had ever been on Earth.

So, it strikes me as profoundly ironic that we - the very people who are enduring great agonies and relentless waves of emotional tension in a lone and dreary world bathed in death, disease, despair and discord - have labeled those who experience such profound love and joy as simply “dead.”

That’s our name for people who have entered this new state of otherworldly beauty and happiness - so much so that many report desperately not wanting to return to their bodies after experiencing even just a taste of that. 

With that brute descriptive label, we are, of course, trying to capture that obvious physiological reality that is seemingly opposite of our own living, breathing aliveness. And on a certain biological level, it’s helpful to be so clear.  

But on another level - in fact, on every other level - it’s simply not true. And not even all that helpful - since it leads our mind far from the reality of what’s actually taking place.

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Christians the world over believe in a future aliveness that will come for everyone during the resurrection. But it’s way cooler than even that, since spirits of the departed live on right now….and not in some middling, cloudy limbo state either.

The prophet Joseph Smith and his nephew Joseph F. Smith both underscored how very aware and attentive are those who have “gone on” (one of my new favorites) - with the former noting that they are “not far from us and know and understand our thoughts and feelings and notions and are often pained” by what we’re going through. The latter also taught that these departed loved ones “are as deeply interested in our welfare today, if not with greater capacity, with far more interest….than they were in the flesh.”

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

To further punctuate the point, John Taylor added that the departed “are more interested in us than we are in ourselves, ten thousand times, but we do not know it.”¹

I believe this. It’s okay if you still wonder.

But just for a moment, consider the irony that arises from this vantage point: How is it that we - who can hardly drag ourselves out of the bed in the morning - call these people merely “dead”? In doing so, we insinuate strong distance between our own aliveness and theirs when in every sense but one their aliveness excels our own.

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Mom was feeling sad. I knew it. I hadn’t seen or spoken with my dear mother in a very long time, and for obvious reasons. 

She was also dead, and had been for a number of years….or shall we say “dead”? 

But with a number of years since her passing, I couldn’t deny a palpable sense that she felt neglected by us her children - who, for various, understandable reasons, had put their attention elsewhere…far away from the dear mother of their childhoods.  

On some level, it seemed to hurt her to be forgotten and not discussed. I felt it. I knew it that day. 

So I’m taking this new moment of Emma’s departure (transition…transformation…. quickening?) as a chance to right the ship. I will no longer be speaking of my departed loved ones as if they are no longer “with us” - existing in a galaxy far far away, on the other side of some kind of a China wall beyond our own realm. 

That is not the truth. Period. Exclamation point. Heart and rainbow emojis. 

They are here. On the earth. With us. By us. Surrounding us. 

“She Will Find What is Lost,” exquisite oil painting by Brian Kershisnik hanging in our home

“Do you suppose that there are any angels here today?” Heber Kimball once asked a group he was speaking with, confiding that he wouldn’t be surprised “if there were ten times more angels here than people.”

Even if we don’t see them, he added, “they are here watching us and anxious for our [well-being].” This may be especially true for those in greatest need. Kent Richards told the story of a 14-hour surgery for one young girl. For nearly an hour as she recovered, this girl described to her family many visitors who were coming into her room, “Aunt Cheryl is here … and … Grandpa Norman … and Grandma Brown … are here.” She later told her father, “Daddy, all of the children here in the intensive care unit have angels helping them.” 

Rather than exceptional, I’ve started to wonder if this kind of angelic company is more normal than not.²

A pencil sketch by artist Ann Ivanouskay depicting my daughter Emma, her cousin Iris who passed years before and their grandmother Martha, my mother.

If this is all true - and those who have gone on are deeply happy and peaceful, while remaining close by and often surrounding us….

Well, what do we call that?!

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“Dead” is off the table - even if our heads weren’t full of creepy ghost imagery, seemingly the worst possible word given its connotation of impassable separation and wholesale absence of life (“dead as a doornail”).

In fact, the special failure of this specific word is evident in another sense of “dead” that we often use in conversation: uneventful, uninteresting, tedious, lackluster, tiresome, lifeless (far removed from the reality of those who have gone on, if we are to believe ancient and modern prophetic guidance).

“Departed” has the same kind of problems as “dead” - synonymous with “gone” and taken as the opposite of “living.” 

Even worse are words such as “lost, perished, expired,” “gone” or “no more” - as if these people had not only left, but had ceased to exist (some evolutionary thinkers even use words like “extinct” as a synonym of dead - ugh!) 

More generic words like “demised, deceased, perished, fallen” convey a sense of departure and leaving, but also in a more permanent sense - aka, the deceased has gone away, withdrawn, made off, made an exit, left and been removed from our lives. 

What’s missing in some of these words is where they have gone next, and what they have gone to - which is the virtue of other words like “passed away” (to somewhere else) and “passed on” (to another realm) - clearly conveying that someone has transitioned and moved on to another state or place.³ 

Photo by Sean Pierce on Unsplash

Another requirement for the ideal new word would be conveying the life and aliveness the departed currently possess. When we say something like “lifeless, inanimate” we’re really trying to convey that their spirit is no longer animating their bodies. 

Yet many of us are convicted that their spirits are still engaged, moving and animate - very much not “defunct,” “insentient” or “insensate.”⁴ 

So what do we call them??! I’m still not sure.

My relative Micaela Hess and Emma’s grandmother and namesake Ann both like the term “graduated.” My friend Diana Gourley prefers "passed" or "transitioned." And my Dad likes the accuracy of “disembodied spirits” (which still feels just a bit spooky to me!)

I think my friend Shauna May may have found a winner in voting for “awakened” – aka, no longer asleep like the rest of us.😊

Would love to hear your thoughts too. I hope I’ve framed the conversation to help one of my friends or family members eventually figure out the best answer. 

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A final thought. But why does any of this really matter? Much of this, of course, could easily be dismissed as mere “semantics” - language games with little relevance to real life. But I wonder if that’s another thing far from the truth - given how much our day-to-day language ends up partially constituting our very existence, as Charles Taylor said. 

Laney Allen wrote me about the personal impact of changing the way she speaks about those who have “graduated” and coming to think more about “angels surrounding me” - saying she has been “feeling more loved and seen and also more responsible with my daily actions.” Laney added, “I feel closer to them and more accountable to them. And I feel a kind of synergy I didn’t feel before.”

My friend Scott Hutchins also expressed a desire to “not forget” those who had departed, saying, “I believe our loved ones are only a thought away and by thinking about them we invite them to be near.”

How much of our grief and sorrow is conditioned and influenced by our views of where these departed loved ones are, what they are experiencing - and how close (or far) they are from us?

Joseph Smith, who with his beloved Emma lost 6 children in infancy, wrote in April 1843: “More painful to me are thoughts of annihilation than death; if I had no expectation of seeing my Father, Mother, Brothers, Sisters, and friends again, my heart would burst in a moment, and I should go down to my grave.”

If Joseph’s heart could and would have “burst in a moment” if he believed his loved ones had been annihilated, wouldn’t a belief that our departed loved ones had gone to some place inaccessible and far away likewise pack a painful punch?

By comparison, how about believing (really believing) just the opposite….that these dear ones are close, at peace, happy and still able to be involved in our life today?   

Christian believers the world over gladly anticipate the future, as Joseph did, when comparing the experience of laying dear ones in the grave to their “taking a long journey, and on their return, we meet them with increased joy.”

But here’s the thing: there’s something even better than awaiting these grand reunions one day. That’s what I’ve been feeling the most these days - realizing that another kind of reunion is available right now….very much in our present, mortal condition as our eyes are opened to things as they really are.

May we all come to see for ourselves the true state and relationship of our “departed” family members who have “passed on” to a better place - without ever really leaving us behind. 

Notes: 

1. For resurrected beings, even more so. Compared to those who are disembodied and eagerly awaiting the reunion with their body, those angels who have received a glorified body experience far more than simply heightened awareness. Other inspired statements suggest that our departed’s capacity to do anything and everything has also been heightened: 

• Parley Pratt taught that angels “eat, drink, sing and converse like other(s). … They pass from one world to another with more ease and in less time than we pass from one city to another. They have not a single attribute which man has not. But their attributes are more matured, or more developed.” 

• B.H. Roberts taught that angels “possess a material body of flesh and bones, can eat, drink, walk, converse, reason, love, fight, wrestle, sing, or play on musical instruments. They can go or come on foreign missions, in heaven, earth, or hell; and they can travel space, and visit the different worlds, with all the ease and alacrity with which God and Christ do the same, being possessed of similar organizations, powers, and attributes in a degree.”

Some degree of diminished capacity might suggest why Latter-day Saint scripture teaches that the departed most often have “looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage.”

2. Brigham Young taught exactly this, “There is much in my presence besides those who sit here, if we had eyes to see the heavenly beings that are in our presence.” Jeffrey Holland similarly said, “There are angels everywhere at work” on the earth. 

It’s still unsurprising that we don’t appreciate this, since we cannot see these beautiful beings tangibly or easily with our own eyes. That’s why reminders can be so helpful, such as one hymn attesting, “Oh, know you not that angels are near you.” 

We are “not alone,” John Widtsoe affirmed, teaching that men and women walk “in the midst of such heavenly company, from whom we may expect help if we seek it.” Elder Orson Pratt added, “There is no doubt … that heavenly messengers hover around the congregation of the Saints here assembled … to bluff off the powers of darkness, that seek to darken the minds of the people, and to close their hearts against understanding.”

After Sam’s funeral talk, Laurie Preece wrote to me that it seemed Sam can feel Emma “because she lives and is having experiences that people who love her (and are listening) can share in a unique way.” She added her sense that this is “a form of spiritual revelation that is designed to build our faith and comfort.”

From everything I’ve read, these interactions don’t have to be infrequent. About another early believer, it is written, “so great was his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily.”

The Prophet Joseph added, “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.” 

3. Once again, while these people may have departed our conscious awareness and visible presence, they have not departed from our existence…not at all. So a new word would need to convey that better - and avoid the connotations of being gone. 

Believers sometimes describe the deceased as simply “with God,” while colloquially we also say they are “at peace,” “laid to rest” or “asleep” (the phrase “bought the farm” carries similar connotations of finally having a chance to live peaceably after earthly wartime).

Of course, we also have words that center more tangibly on the state of the body (“inert,” “not breathing,” “having breathed one's last” and “stiff”) or its location: “in the grave,” “buried” “pushing up daisies,” and “six feet under.” 

And there are a host of words centering on the event and action precipitating death - Especially when that has involved some violence (“slain, slaughtered, killed, murdered”).

4. Instead, they are alive in another way - and with sensory capacities more acute in a spiritual sense than most of us can even comprehend (albeit apparently missing the sensory capacity their bodies had once provided - even considering it a “bondage” - while anticipating that resurrection reunion with great excitement).