Grief is hard. It’s messy. It’s not a nice, neat list of stages. It’s more like a ball of yarn knotted together with multiple stages happening all at the same time.
it’s an individual journey, and everyone navigates it differently. My husband and I lost the same son, and we have grieved differently. My grandmother and I have both lost a child, and we have grieved differently. It can feel very isolating. People don’t know how to treat you. Do I express my condolences? Do I share a story? Do I say his name? No, she might cry.
“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” Jamie Anderson
October is here. I love the fall colors. Yet, it is also a very difficult month. I feel like I spend most days in October holding my breath. Hoping that I can keep myself together. Even when I try not to look at the calendar, my body knows and remembers.
On October 1, 1996, I experienced my first significant loss when my grandfather passed away. This amazing man built me a Barbie doll house. He built me stilts and laughed as I tried to walk on them. He made me a slingshot and taught me how to use it. He taught me to drive. The day before he died, we found out I was pregnant with our first child. I never got to tell him.
October 29th, 2001, I experienced my next significant loss – my step father. I adored that man. And I was so grateful for the joy he brought to my mom. Joy that I heard in her laughter and saw in her eyes.
October 15th, 2013. My mom had surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed. It was not successful. Doctors gave her two years. I came home from spending a couple of weeks caring for her and three days later found myself in the emergency room begging God to save our 16-year-old son, Joshua. Doctors were frantically trying to resuscitate him. They did. We were airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Little Rock and three days later, we sent him on to Heaven ahead of us.
Two months later, my husband’s uncle died.
Two months after that, his dear great aunt. She was the one who would give him cookies when his grandmother said he had had enough.
Two months later, my mom left this earth to receive her eternal reward. We didn’t get two years with her.
We were terrified to answer the phone two months after that. Grief is exhausting and we were living in a fog. I remember feeling accomplished if I had brushed my teeth and got to school with matching shoes. I didn’t care if they matched what I was wearing, just as long as they matched each other.
Our entire world had been turned upside down. Everything was so different. Our morning commute, our after school activities, our place at church. The grocery store list no longer included his favorite foods. Even going out to eat was heart-wrenching – “just 3” the hostess would say. It felt like a punch in the gut. She couldn’t have known.
I don’t know how we would have survived without the outpouring of love – from the church, from our neighbors, from the teachers at my school. Yet there comes a time when everyone has to go back to their own lives, and we have to make a decision. We had to choose how we would live while we waited to be reunited with our sweet boy. Would we allow anger and bitterness to control us or would we look to the cross? It looks easy on paper. It isn’t in reality. It’s hard. How could we possibly live well while mourning someone who was no longer here with us.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NIV)
Does that mean we don’t grieve? Of course not! We are sad. We miss him every single day. It says we do not grieve as those without hope. Before Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, He wept. We grieve. We also anticipate a reunion in Heaven that is beyond anything our human minds can fathom.
This month, we will navigate the 6th anniversary of our boy child receiving his reward. It took awhile, but one of our most significant moments was when we realized that God was not punishing us when Joshua died. He was rewarding Joshua for a life well lived. Our worst day ever, was his absolute best.
What does grieving with hope look like?
It means moving FORWARD with grief. Not moving on or moving past it but carrying it with us as we are learning to live again and learning to find joy in the mourning.
The next seven posts are going to look at specific steps we can take to move FORWARD as we grieve. I hope you will join us on the journey and share some of the ways that you have moved forward as you have grieved.
With Eyes on the Cross 