Love cannot help but remember; remembrance cannot help but weep. Unfortunately our culture sees weeping as a weakness; therefore we feel embarrassed or ashamed when we do shed tears, especially in public. Yet grief springs from the deepest part of our soul because the root of that grief is great love. So why should we apologize when our expressions of grief should be the most natural of things to occur? The most natural expressions of one who has loved?
No doubt we live in a culture that exalts life and averts its eyes to death. Everything we see, every commercial on TV, is about prolonging life, not letting go of it. And when death or loss does come, we do everything in our ability to “move forward” in a quick manner. To pull up our boot straps and say, “I’m okay.” But if we are honest with ourselves, the hole in us is larger than ever. In fact, the experts tell us that not to grieve well, appropriately and timely, to move forward too fast, may lead to mental health issues like depression and anxiety. It can cause physical problems like trouble sleeping, digestive issues, and a low immune system. Compulsive behaviors. Relationship issues. Work performance. Who wants any of that on top of loss? Yet it is what we choose or are thrust into in place of appropriate grieving.
It hasn’t always been this way. Culture used to allow us time to weep, to grieve, and, yes, to even celebrate. But it seems that more and more we are rushing right to the celebration part. In fact, many funerals are being labeled just that: “Celebrations of Life.” And I get that. But we don’t need to pretend there is nothing to be consoled about. We don’t need to play act that everything is good … when it is not. Something sad and irrevocable HAS happened, regardless of the circumstances. We don’t need quick fixes. We need time and opportunity to grieve those people whom we have loved and lost in whatever manner that loss has occurred.
I recall a dear friend who lost her husband some thirty years ago. Glenda Anderson Leonard was and still is one of the finest, strongest and most sincere women of faith I know. After Paul died, his widow dressed in black for an entire year. She gave place to her grief, wearing it as a badge of honor to her husband and their marriage and as a statement of her immense loss. And no doubt she was healthier for it. It was also a reminder to the rest of us to treat her kindly, gently, and with respect knowing that where she looked alive, together and beautiful on the outside there was a broken heart and grieving soul within. She also helped us not to forget Paul too quickly, himself a giant in this world. She knew the art of grieving and she taught us well.
Another one who taught me well was a caregiver that sat with Daddy in the evenings and on weekends. When she learned of his passing that morning, she rushed over and while my brothers and I were being reverent yet stoic, she threw her entire self over my daddy’s body and wept loudly. It almost shamed me that I didn’t respond so passionately to this man who had birthed, raised and loved me so dynamically. This woman, this woman’s culture, knows how to grieve. I needed to see that.
Grief is natural, if we let it be. It’s also a journey. We’ve all heard the well laid out model: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But seriously, who has ever moved easily through those stages without backing up two steps before moving ahead three? Unfortunately, I have not been able to maneuver those waters well myself. Circumstances thrust me forward and left me little if any time to properly grieve my losses. When my brother died after an heroic battle with brain cancer, seeing to my parents, specifically my daddy, became the most pressing need. It was a long goodbye of dementia with the last fifteen months spent in a Hospice bed in the den of his home. Not given much time to grieve, ten days after his passing, Mom went into the hospital with pneumonia, only to recover and have a stroke six weeks later that resulted in full time care. It, too, has become a long goodbye. Just this week, after one of my daily visits, showing her videos of birds at my feeder and then working a jigsaw puzzle with her, she asked the caregiver after my departure, “Why did she keep calling me Mom? I don’t think I’m her mom.” Long goodbyes. Losses. Grief. Even when the loved one is still alive.
And so this is where I find myself: with mounted grief. Much of it unexpressed. Maybe you do as well. What do we do with that?
First and foremost, we turn to Christ; the One who was Himself acquainted with grief. The One who came and pitched His tent with humanity. The One who shares this journey with us. The One who sees us, knows us, and Who alone can fill those holes left by those whom we have loved and lost.
We can be encouraged that death does not have the final say. That there is a glorious Resurrection where all things will be set right. Where there will be joy and a true Celebration of Life.
We can also give way to the life-giving creative forces within us which is a natural expression of grief. For me, it’s my music. My writing. My journaling. I have a friend who began painting after the death of her husband. Another who cooks … an artistic expression after the loss of her mother. Another who threw herself into gardening.
We can also be thankful. Is it not true that to love at all opens the door to both loss and grief? But surely we can agree with Alfred, Lord Tennyson when he wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Master Eckhart, a 16th Century mystically aware theologian, adds, “To have much is to have much to lose; we ought to remember this when we face a loss, so that this might become our place to be thankful.” A hard word; but never a more true one: gratitude.
And finally, we can let go. Malcom Guite, chaplain, poet, teacher, musician and author writes, “It is not a letting go of love, or a letting go of memory or even of grief. We need to let go in order to receive. In spite of the first shock and emptiness, the sense of unjust deprivation, our long experience of grief can eventually open us up to receiving real gifts: wisdom, empathy and compassion, which might have been received in no other way.”
O Lord, may it be.
Just an ordinary moment…
