A season of giving

Sometimes it is still hard to believe that love, hope, joy, and goodness still exist in the world after we experienced the loss of a loved one. And that it is ok. It is ok to doubt-chances are that this death has caused us to question many things including who are we?, what does the future look like?, and can we every be happy again? These are legitimate questions to ask and we don't have to let anyone convince us otherwise. Did you know most existential philosophers experienced the death of a loved one early on in their lives? They asked the hard questions that seemingly don't have any answers.

However, we just might need to be careful who we ask those questions in front of. Not everyone can handle it. About 1/3 of the people in our lives won't be able to sit with us in our grief and will actually respond negatively to us. Another third won't have the time or the emotional capacity but won't intentionally hurt us. Maybe 1/3 or less will actually understand or try to understand what we are going through and will sit with us in the silence, the tears, and the questions. They won't try to make us feel better, they won't try to answer the questions. They will simply hold the space for us to ask and that is probably the greatest gift anyone can give to someone who is grieving. 

The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe malfunction

Ok, so there is not really a lion or a witch, but there have been a lot of wardrobe malfunctions over the past three years.  As a grown man, I generally like to think that I can dress myself but apparently there has been more than one occasion where I have shown up to work looking a little disheveled-a pant leg stuck in a sock, a shirt inside out, a few belt loops missing with my belt, a collar tucked inside the shirt, etc. Some certain members of the Grace household who shall remain nameless (and there are presently only two non-four footed members) have been known to leave a stove burner on all day (multiple times) or the front door swinging wide open (also multiple times) while no one was home. We have also misplaced coats, wallets, library books, keys, important documents, forgot what day it was, where we parked the car, or just realized that it was a new year-in June.
 I share that with you not to embarrass my parents for raising such an example of buffoonery or berate myself for being an absent minded professor but because things like these are normal in grief. (I would like to believe that when I am in my sound mind; all those things are atypical-mostly). When we grieve we tend to do absent minded things not because our minds are absent, but because they are pre-occupied. It really is as if our minds are stuck in another world like Narnia but our half-dressed bodies remain on this side of the wardrobe. So if you are reading this and you happen to forget to flush the toilet, forget to do, let alone turn in a homework assignment, renew your license plate tags, pay the electric bill or forget that the car actually needs gas to run on, there may be some comfort in knowing that you are in good company or at least, could be mistaken for a Grace family member.

A New Chapter

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers o'er the fraught heart, and bids it break-Shakespeare.

 

Grieving is a lot like writing- sometimes the words pour out like tears and sometimes the words are a far from being penned like the unquenchable longings of the heart. 

 

Like writing, I am  faced with a blank page each time I start a story- but in grief this page isn't just any page for some fictional story, but an unwritten page in the story of my life.  I had an idea of how my story was to be written, but cancers, accidents, suicides, murders and  miscarriages have left me without a clue as to how the next chapter will unfold let alone how my story will end.

 

 Most writers struggle with how to write the first sentence of a story begins because it is supposed to encapsulate all that the story is, without revealing how the story ends. But unlike writing,  as I write the story of my life, I am clueless to how it will  actually end. What assurance do I have, that in the case that my story doesn't end how I would like it to, that at least, it well, it still a good one?

 

Perhaps in grief, the importance of the first sentence gives sway to the last one, just like the importance of how the story ends gives way to focusing on those who will actually finish my story.

My story doesn't end with me. Your story doesn't end with you. Your loved one one's story doesn't end with them either.  The death of the main character doesn't mean the story ends.

Pause for a moment, and think about your loved one's story. It hasn't ended with their death but is continuing with you, with their friends, their families, and sometimes complete strangers as you gather around and share memories. 

 

No one's story end's with their death, but continues to be written in the lives of those who are still living, and in this way, those who have gone on before us, remain with us, in us, and around us. And perhaps Shakespeare's quote is best understood if it is written this way:

Give love words.  Tell the story of your loved one's life. The love that does not speak whispers o'er the fraught heart, and bids it break.

 

So we can grieve in writing the story of our loved ones, and we might just find that the words, as well as the tears, begin to flow, and that our hearts break not from sorrow, but of gratitude.