You may remember that just a month ago, on October 3rd 2025, Dame Patricia Routledge died at the age of 96. Perhaps like me, you took a nostalgic step back in time and ended up watching clips from ‘Hetty Wainthropp investigates’ or ‘Keeping up appearances.’ Perhaps you laughed again at Mrs Bucket – ‘No, no, it’s Mrs Bouquet!’
I also read of an interview Dame Patricia did with BBC ‘s Desert Island Discs in 1999. She spoke movingly of the death of her parents - apparently, she was only 28 when her mum died. She said:
‘I remember going through a time when I thought about my mother and my father not being there and I would lie awake at night weeping. So, in a way, I came to terms with the fact of loss very early on.’
Her interviewer then asked: ‘Still today you think of death?’
Dame Patricia replied:‘
Oh yes, oh yes, I think one has to embrace it in order to live in the present.’
The experience of grief is universal. It affects the famous and the not so famous alike. It is incredibly lonely. But Dame Patricia was very wise when she said the following about grief:
‘I don't think you can go it alone. There is a positive force for good outside oneself, call it God if you like, that has the strength to turn darkness into light.’
In 2021, the actor, Richard E Grant, lost his wife of 35 years to lung cancer. Like Patricia Routledge, he embraced his grief by sharing it publicly. Soon after losing Joan, he began to post videos on Instagram about his grief. There, he speaks of how, underlying everything in this stage of life, is Joan’s absence. An absence that he eloquently described while walking on a beach in Australia, as being ‘like an old turtle without my shell.’ A turtle without its shell – an image of utter vulnerability. In the midst of his grief—that most isolating state of all—Grant rapidly built community through his posts. One of his Instagram followers wrote
“I’ve found incredible comfort in these thoughtful videos you share with us; their beautiful honesty, their pain—but always the careful re-framing of each piece within the greater mosaic of a life well lived.”
Revd Craig, a vicar in Weston Super Mare. wrote similarly about finding community in the deep ongoing pain of the sudden death of his Dad in 2024.
‘In the early months of my grief, I found myself held — not just by God, but by the people he sent to walk beside me. Friends who prayed, cried, and remembered. Family who stood when I couldn’t stand alone. … It made me think of geese flying in formation. They take turns leading. They honk encouragement to one another. When one falls behind, others stay until it can fly again. That’s what community looks like. That’s how we are meant to grieve: not in isolation, but in formation.’
Revd Craig also writes of the joy that comes from knowing Jesus is with you even in the depths of grief. He says:
‘… somehow — mysteriously, tenderly — God turned my father’s death into a strange, sacred gift. Not because the loss wasn’t real, but because the love was. A love shared in community. A love anchored in Christ. A greater love, that opened a door to a greater joy in God. Not a brittle kind of joy that denies sorrow, … [but] a joy rooted in peace, sustained by hope, and strengthened by courage. A joy that whispers: You are not alone. A joy that says: Jesus is here.’
David, the writer of Psalm 139, has the same assurance that God’s presence will never leave him.
Psalm 139:7-10
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
Some Bible versions translate ‘in the depths’ as ‘in hell.’ Grief can be ‘hellish’. But David is confident. that where ever life’s journey may take him, God will never be distant or absent.
9 … if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
David expresses this same hope and courage in Psalm 23, often read at funeral services. Here he describes the challenges of life, the losses and the grief, as ‘dark valleys.’ But his Shepherd God is right there with him. So, he says with bold confidence:
Psalm 23: 4
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
It may be that many of us already experience the support of family and friends in times of loss. But our desire as a church is also to share the love of God and offer support in any way we can. We want to fly together like geese in formation, encouraging one another. We want to be there for one another and for our community.
Christian hope speaks of the confidence we have in those times when we feel like a turtle without a shell, that God is always with us. May his loving presence be our comfort in the inevitable times of loss and grief, Amen.
Revd. Miriam Davis