A woman named Dorcas died. She made clothes for widows in Joppa. Peter was nearby, so a couple people went to find him, to ask if he’d come and raise her from the dead.

They thought it a reasonable request. And Peter came.

When he walked into the house, there were widows. Their husbands had died, and with him went their reliable means of support. Until Dorcas started making them robes. And now she died.

When they came together to collectively mourn, they brought the robes she had made for them.

When grieving people hold onto clothing that reminds them of their loved one, it’s not new.  They are expressing human concerns when they say, “This is what she did for me, this is what he did for us, what are we going to do now?”

Most of us can’t do what Peter did. We can’t raise people from the dead. But we can acknowledge that this is, and will be, hard.

And we can, perhaps, be like Dorcas: she was always doing good and helping the poor

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The story is in Acts 9