Remember Sister Death and Her Sweet Sting, But Whose Victory?

“At the end, I am there with them. I am holding their hand and they’re holding mine…”

Every episode of the Netflix fantasy drama, The Sandman, based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, is a powerhouse of thought and emotion. The superb acting of both the main character, Dream, played by Tom Sturridge, and the supporting cast carry the highly entertaining, slow-burn of a series.

While there are some episodes that seem to exist independent of the entire season arc, his presence does carry the larger story forward along with brief moments to remind the viewer there is a bigger conflict at hand. 

However, episode 6 of the series, titled “The Sound of Her Wings,” is a gripping meditation on the nature of death and how it shapes life. One can find parallels to St. Francis’s companion, “Sister Death,” and the Christian relationship and understanding of death. Though a painful reality of life, it is also as a doorway to hope because of the Resurrection of Jesus.

We begin with Dream on a park bench, met by his “sister” Death. These are two of seven siblings who are all representations of powerful natural forces they embody. In the Sandman series, this includes Destiny, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium. Death is played by the incredibly talented Kirby Howell-Baptiste, as she begins an extended conversation with him about her vocation during a “take-your-brother-to-work-day” scenario.

Interestingly, many ancient spiritual traditions have associated sleep with death. One finds references in Homer, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in Buddhism that understand this connection, which Gaiman in writing his graphic novel has demonstrated. 

Not only does he make Dream and Death close siblings, but he has Dream seek advice from Death as well, showing a poignant power dynamic grounded in human experience.

Remember Sister Death

In this first act, she shares some powerful reflections with her brother about her work as she guides these souls, some old, some young, some expected, many not, to their destination. As she says, “People may not be ready for my gift, but they get it anyway, no matter the circumstance.”

While in one sense it is true what she later says, “In the end, each of us stands alone,” she sees it as her special vocation to be each individual soul’s companion as it transitions. This is not unlike the relationship St. Francis of Assisi recognized in his own “Sister Death.”

One of the unexpected consequences of St. Francis’s radical hospitality for the stranger was that it must include the ultimate stranger, Death itself, and that it must be welcomed without hatred or fear. 

Remember Sister Death

This radical hospitality St. Francis extended to even Death came from the same logic he used when he extended it to every other stranger, whether he be poor or leprous or threatening, who came by.

It was because St. Francis could always see deeper than what was on the surface- he could see “as the Lord sees,” and how that stranger was a reflection of Jesus in a real-er way than appeared.

So too was the case with Sister Death. While everyone always talks about the mystery surrounding death and the fear it induces, St. Francis simply saw Jesus. Then, death became just another means by which he would meet Him. 

This is not only a spiritually encouraging approach, but it is simply reasonable and practical as this is the most certain reality all humans must face. But because of our ability, or to some our curse, of being able to face it well before it actually happens, it also becomes the form by which we live our life. 

This is not entirely bad, as again many spiritual traditions encourage us to Memento Mori or, remember your death, but what is important is the way death forms life. If we first see it as St. Francis saw, a means by which we experience greater union with Beloved, then Death becomes a servant, nay, a companion, no, ultimately, a Sister whose “philial” love will carry us to the One to whom Death is utterly subject. 

In the many scenes where Sandman’s Death greets the souls of the episode, she requires that they confront their corpse before she sends them along. This image shows us, the viewer, how each of them, and each of us, must similarly confront our own death, first the prospect, but eventually the fulfillment.

In the end, Death concludes her lesson with her brother, Dream, with an important reminder about their own respective vocations, “We’re here to serve them!”

Remember Sister Death