Blessed are those who mourn...
Tom and Ruth
…for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:6
This past week I was invited to share my experience of grief with a grief support group. Because the upcoming holidays are often a time that stir the pot of grief, I thought I’d share with you as well.
My journey with grief is both past and present, because missing someone never really goes away. It just takes a different shape. What I’d like to share with you today is all the wonderful things about my parents – like their gracious hospitality, generosity, and kindness to others. Their memory makes my heart swell! But since memories can carry grief with them, what I feel led to share with you is my lessons in grief.
Watching my parents through some significant losses I learned to pull-up by my bootstraps and keep moving on. It wasn’t until the year my parents died just five months apart that I tumbled into the depths of grief. My boots were flooded with tears and I don’t even know where the straps were. It was the first time I learned to accept darkness rather than run from it. Like a train pushing itself through a dark tunnel, I could not see any light at the end, yet I knew there was movement. Without words to express myself, Psalm 40 became my prayer:
I waited patiently for the Lord,
He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the desolate pit (!), out of the miry bog (!)
And set my feet upon a rock
Making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth.
Sitting with this prayer day after day I learned to accept the desolate pit, a place that was oddly isolated and comforting at the same time. These verses also held trust for me that one day my steps would be secure. With time, without forcing it, I finally found a new song. This experience of acceptance and waiting gave me the foundation for another time that caught me by surprise.
She was four-weeks old when she died. As the hospital chaplain, it was my service to carry her to the morgue. I watched as she was wrapped up and taken away. She looked like she was sleeping, precious, like my new granddaughter at the time. I thought I might cry at this sight. Rather I was left numb, a numbness so raw it does not permit tears.
I knew that I felt something but did not name it nor know exactly what to do with it. And as is common to our living, I was needed elsewhere so I just kept moving. On my way home I went grocery shopping. I would be alone for dinner and planned an easy baked sweet potato with sautéed spinach. Other items that made their way into my cart were honey-nut Cheerios and honey-wheat pretzel twists, unusual, but what the hec. As I put the groceries away at home, I poured a cup of Cheerios to tide me over until dinner. In lifting the first sweet taste to my mouth I suddenly realized that I had bought comfort food. The food brought soothing memories of snacks shared with my kids. And the spinach/potato dinner was a simple meal I enjoyed on nights alone as a single mom when I had opportunity to replenish myself. In this moment I acknowledged that what I witnessed was profoundly sad and I was grieving. Allowing myself the space, I ate my comfort food, wrapped myself in one of my mother’s old sweatshirts and sat in silence. A silence that went right through me.
There is a story of silence and the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19 where he is waiting to hear from God on Mt. Horeb. There is a great wind, an earthquake, a fire … but the Lord was not in any of them. Then, after the fire, there was a sound of sheer silence.Isn’t it odd to think of silence as a sound? This place without words, beyond powerful winds and scorching fires ... places of silence save a gentle whisper that speaks to the soul. This is the space where I believe Christ (God, Spirit, Yahweh) is most intimate – the numb spaces of in-between. Between suffering and healing, between death and resurrection. As painful as the silence can be, I sense with Elijah that this is a sacred space. It is a place of being and yet not fully living. I wonder how it is that Love is so present in a space that feels so empty?
It is nearly 20 years since my parents died. The emotions of grief do not go away but I learn to carry it differently. I honor grief and make a space for it. Like a sacred chair in my home, occasionally it calls me to come sit a spell. So I take the time to laugh, to cry, to remember. And thus I honor those I love, appreciate what they have given me, and consider their legacy. I embrace the space that is all at once empty and full. I have discovered truth in these words from The Wilderness of Grief: Finding your way, “To honor grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is self-sustaining and life giving!”[1]
In this November time of ThanksGiving, which is also my parents’ birthday month, I give thanks for the life they’ve given me in oh so many ways!
God bless you wherever you are in your journey. For on-line support, see faithandgrief.org.
In this together...
[1]Alan D. Wolfelt, The Wilderness of Grief: Finding Your Way. (Fort Collins: Companion Press, 2007) p. 17.