If you'd have asked me years ago what I'd do if my parents
died, I'd have told you I'd drop to the ground and not be able to function.
However, God gets us through it.
You will learn you can disintegrate into a ball or step into
the light of hope and having grief and laughter coexist. You may feel like you
are moving through cement, sweeping many things under the rug the first year.
You don't know what to do first, second or third. You may lose friends, gain
friends, deepen admiration for those left or who care. It is nearly impossible
to overestimate the balm that a friend's language can be, said Thomas Lynch.
We are powerless over death except by faith. Grief is depleting;
sinking you to the size of a bean. It's soul crushing. Lives are altered, but
we must trust Jesus to restore our lives to manageability. We must entrust that
our loved one is in the protection of God. It's hard to sever a lifetime of
years in a second. From written to erased. But we know where they are. They
don't belong to us; they are His to take. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh
away.
Grief can change your outlook. You don't forget the shock of
the moment, the sadness, the pain. Grief changes who you are, but it may reveal
who you are. The depths you didn't know you had. It can help you live to the
values you espouse, said Prince William.
Don't lock grief in a box. Getting through one day is the
best we can hope for. Then another. You may think you don't know how to get
there, but think "I can at least get here." It’s helpful to have
gratitude for every small step along the way: if you are beginning to taste
your food again, mustered energy to meet friends for lunch, got a good night's
sleep. Every day is one more day behind you. It's also another opportunity to
use the small things, the details, to spread the word about your loved one.
Through the telling of your story, you claim it. “We talk about mommy
constantly if there’s a song that comes on; we dance to Michael Jackson in the
morning,” said Charles Johnson, who lost his wife.
Don't live inside a bubble of macho.
In his new book, Mitch Albom talks about the loss of his
little girl, saying before her, he and his wife were a pair, then became a
trio. He became a chauffeur to someone in the back seat. They had three seats
for a movie. They stood and walked together, holding hands, one, two, three
down a hallway. Until she died.
As Nicholas Wolstertorff wrote in Lament for a Son, if he is
worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the
worth of the one loved. That worth abides. Brad Pitt said there's no love
without loss. It's a package deal.
Sometimes we embrace our scars more than our healing. We
recall the day we got hurt, but who remembers the day the wound was gone? There
will be an everlasting family reunion, a non-ending banquet feast. For faithful
people, life is changed, not ended. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Bishop Fulton Sheen said accepting suffering and disease and
bereavement does not mean talking pleasure in them or steeling oneself against
them or hoping that time will soften them. It means offering them to God so
they can bring forth fruit. In the Mass of Resurrection, celebrants wear white
to symbolize the joyous resurrection of the dead.
Funerals make you stop and think. Time is not as precious as
it should be until you have a serious health issue, said Tyler Trent, deceased
Purdue student. One person said he knew him before and during cancer and will know
him after cancer as pain free. Trent often said God’s holy; I’m not. Jesus
saves. He is the creator who sets the rules. Guests left his funeral with a
meeple as a reminder because he loved games. He loved this song: It is not
death to die. To leave this weary road and join the saints who dwell on high
who've found their home with God. It is not death to close the eyes long dimmed
by tears and wake in joy before Your throne. Those who trust in You will in
Your mercy find that it is not death to die.
You may need a distraction from grief. For Sebastian on NCIS
New Orleans, video games served this purpose. For others it may be gym
workouts, working, eating, drinking or gardening. Neil Armstrong thought the
best thing for him to do was keep working after the loss of his 2-year-old
daughter, to keep things as normal as he could. Some families decide to cook to
honor a legacy, maybe a recipe for pound cake. Another person's mother wrote on
whatever card or scrap of paper was handy. Her siblings read, cried, remembered,
rejoiced, thanked and wanted to finish her book under her name for the book she
never got to write. It connected them to her, to live up to her legacy. Others
adopted the deceased one's dog.
Some may claim a safe screaming space. A cartoon had a safe
place where the characters could keep an eye on everyone they loved so nothing
bad could happen to them. The characters were behind a desk that said:
"Bad things stay away." But we know they don't always do that.
You may feel like you failed your loved one. Would you wish
him back the way he was suffering? Catch and release, like love and grief, are
difficult notions. The permanence of death means you can never atone for all
the ways you could have been nicer, warmer, more attentive.
Someone's parents never got over a stillborn death and
called their other son by his late brother's name.
I believe those we love don't go away. They walk beside us
every day. Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I'm never not thinking of
you, said Virginia Woolf. A song says: My future is my past/This memory will
last/I'll live to love the days gone by.
Son, just stand, is a lesson from a third grade dropout to
his son. Shake your fist and hold on for dear life with the other hand. After
his wife died, Rick Rigsby was ready to give up. The bare minimum was good
enough. Rigsby was content to go through the motions, living out his life as a
shell of himself until he remembered the advice.
It sounds odd, but the people of Madagascar have a unique
ritual to celebrate family ties called Famadihana, also known as "turning
of the bones." It is a festival celebrated every seven years or so, during
which family crypts are opened up and the remains of dead ancestors are brought
out to be wrapped in a new cloth. The Malagasy then dance with the corpses in
great joy. The elders explain to their children the importance of the dead who
are lying before them. Famadihana is viewed as a day to show your family just
how much you love them. According to
Malagasy belief, people are not made from mud, but from the bodies of the
ancestors. Hence they hold their forefathers in high regard. They also believe
that unless the bodies decompose completely, the dead do not leave permanently
and are able to communicate with the living. So until they are gone forever,
love and affection is showered on them through the Famadihana festival.
Grief also affects animals. A female orca whale grieved her
dead calf and was still swimming with its body after more than two weeks. Max
on New Amsterdam struggles with the loss of his wife. "I don't want to get
better," he said. "If I get better, I have to let her go. I don't
want that."
Take this comment from a child. "Heaven is better than
Afghanistan," said a 5 year old who lost her father. Philippians 3:20 says
our way of life is in heaven and from heaven, we await the Savior, our Lord
Jesus Christ. Romans 6:23 says the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
The pieces of your life get scattered and broken. Just know
that light will come through the cracks eventually.
One man invited people to tour his impressive Christmas
village in memory of his wife who fell victim to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist
attack at the World Trade Center. Each year, he raises thousands of dollars for
the Nalitt Institute’s Outpatient Children’s Cancer Unit at Staten Island
University Hospital in Ocean Breeze.
A lady whose son was abducted and murdered bought the home
he was renting and named it the Divine Mercy House. She didn't want it to be a
place of mourning. It was first occupied by seminary students and now it’s an
option for low-income Franciscan University students. She also raised money to
send children from struggling neighborhoods and broken families--children like
the ones who murdered her son--to better schools. In honor of her son wanting
to be a pediatrician, she launched the Run the Race Club, an after-school
program that has provided tutoring, sports meals and a place to hang out for
hundreds of children from Columbus, Ohio. Then she started a land contract
program with the goal of transforming neighborhoods. Using private donations,
run-down houses are fixed up and sold at the original price and interest-free
to families that wouldn't otherwise be able to get a loan. It's been 20 years.
She told the killers they had time to change at sentencing. They could turn to
God and have a happy life. She is still waiting for them, now 38 and 39, to
reach out and apologize.
One last story I read: From utter despair, somehow, some
times, we gain inspiration. In the most dire circumstances, when hopelessness
hangs like a thick fog, the human spirit rebounds, and frequently triumphs.
Each March 1 or close to it, in schools, youth and senior centers around
Natchitoches, that storyline plays out in the annual Chris Waddell Day series
of community service endeavors by the Northwestern State football program.
March 1, 2004, was one of the more exciting days in Waddell's life. It turned
out to be his last day. He was a 19-year-old aspiring college football player,
ready to start his first set of spring practices with the NSU Demons the next
day. In the final moments of a light conditioning workout in Turpin Stadium,
standing waiting on his next turn, he wobbled and collapsed. Almost
instantaneously, trainers went to work, to no avail. It was an outcome his mom,
Celeste Waddell, had long feared. When he was 5 years old, Chris was diagnosed
with Kawasaki Syndrome, which can result in rapid aging of the heart. He was
treated with medication until he was 10, when doctors told Celeste he could
lead a normal life and should be fine. She didn't tell his high school coaches
or anyone at NSU about the childhood scare. She long ago decided to let her
only child live the life he dreamed about. In the medical field herself, as a
respiratory therapist, she trusted the doctors' advice and chose hope. The
condition took its terrible toll far earlier than anyone thought possible.
Chris went through all the medical screening young athletes experience, and
additional cardiology testing, without any indication of cause for concern,
until his final moments. The annual Chris Waddell Day began March 1, 2005, and
has continued each year, with the Demons making school and community center
visits to interact with youth and seniors, to provide enjoyment and
inspiration. She stays in touch with NSU athletics director Greg Burke and the
Demon football program. From time to time, she makes unannounced visits to
Turpin Stadium to stand, pray and reflect on a special logo on the field where
her son's journey on earth ended, and she leaves a rose there. On the 14th
Waddell Day, it was the first time she's found the emotional strength to
participate.
A Columbine victim's father has done that. He still walks in
his tennis shoes 20 years later.
Here are the partial words from a poem, If You Could See Me
Now, by Don Moen:
I finally arrived
The healing that had been delayed
Is now realized
No one's in a hurry
There's no schedule to keep
We're all enjoying Jesus
Just sitting at His feet
If you could see me now
I'm walking streets of gold
If you could see me now
I'm standing tall and whole
If you could see me now
You'd know I've seen His face
If you could see me now
You'd know the pain's erased
You wouldn't want me
To ever leave this place
If only you could see me now
My light and temporary trials
Have worked out for my good
To know it brought Him glory
When I misunderstood
Though we've had our sorrows
They can never compare
To what Jesus has in store for us
No language can share
Or be reminded of these songs we all know from the PBS
Country Music Special:
Some glad morning when this life is o'er. I'll fly away to a
home on God's celestial shore. I'll fly away. I'll fly away, oh Glory I'll fly
away when I die. Hallelujah by and by; I'll fly away.
And: Will the circle
be unbroken. By and by, Lord, by and by. There's a better home a-waiting. In
the sky, Lord, in the sky.
And this one:
Go rest high on that mountain. Son your work on earth is
done. Go to Heaven a shoutin'. Love for the Father and the Son.
And a new one by Craig Morgan that says I love, I hope, I
pray, I cry as he heals a little more day by day.
Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you
rejoice. Indian proverb
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