How Much Grief Is Acceptable?

     As I've been dealing with the recovery and continued work on my tooth as well as the illness that has finally claimed my body for a time, I've also continued to struggle with the grief of not being able to walk the Camino with my son.  As people have said, I probably will go back and walk the Camino another time.  A wonderful friend of mine has even offered to go with me, for which I am deeply grateful. But this opportunity to walk the Camino with my son feels like a one time chance that I won't get back. Middle, himself, while still continuing the Camino on his own, has stated that he doesn't see how he would have the time or resources to try to repeat this. While we don't know what the future holds, while my son is spending almost all of his time either in school far away (Fairbanks normally, though this year he was in Bergen, Norway), or working far away (he works at his school even through the summers and winter breaks), this time with him at this precious stage of his life felt extremely important. Eventually he will probably have his own family, and these rare and valuable opportunities to be together, just mother and son, especially in a situation of walking where there aren't the distractions of city life, work, or even chores that need to be done, will be harder to come by. Middle will be home for a week at the end of the summer before returning to Alaska, but I will be back to working full time, and his attention will be shared with the rest of the family, including extended family.  The opportunity for twelve days, just the two of us, has been lost, and I continue to feel that.

    But in the midst of this grief that I have yet to conquer, I am aware of how privileged my feelings are.  How many people have an opportunity to even dream about or imagine they will have the privilege of twelve days off from work to spend alone time with a young adult child?  How many people have young adult children who would choose to spend their time like this?  And how many would have the resources to travel in this way?  I realize that the dreams I had for this week, themselves, were privileges that relatively few have.  

    There are so many much more painful realities that people are grieving.  The loss of loved ones, the loss of freedom, the loss of homes to wars, foreclosures, fires or other natural disasters, and the list goes on, are all so much greater.  Grieving this time with my son, when placed in the perspective of all the other loses people face, feels like a luxury.  Does that sound strange?  And yet, I think it's a truth.  How much, then, can I justify this deep grief that I feel?

    But as you know, feelings just are.  They aren't good or bad.  They just exist.  And the more we can be gentle with ourselves around what we feel, the more quickly we can go through them to the other side. Perhaps it helps to remember that this loss is small in the big picture. What I think helps more is just recognizing that the depth of my grief is in measure to the depth of the love I feel for this amazing young man I am so blessed to call my son.  The pain mirrors the blessing.  Two sides of the same coin.  

    Additionally, and to be realistic, I think I'm also just weepy because my body is extremely tired from all the traveling, the time change, and the need to recover from extensive and on-going tooth work while dealing with illness! What has been physically exhausting has been emotionally exhausting as well.

    So today I continue to lay low and work to recover physically so I can also heal emotionally.  I am grateful for my son, even while we are apart once again.  And I'm grateful for my home: where I can spend the time recovering that I need in order to move forward.

Are We Our Stories?

         About a month ago I was able to attend a conference for pastors and church leaders.  The theme of the retreat was story-telling: the importance of hearing and sharing the stories that make us who we are.  I found myself troubled by some of what was said, but I tried to stay in the positive of what we learned concerning the importance of telling our stories and hearing other people's stories.  The conference ended with lunch, and as I sat with a new friend I had made at the conference, she turned to me and asked what my biggest take-away had been.  I told her that I needed time to think on that, but that obviously she had been thinking about it already, so I wondered what her biggest take-away was.  She said it was a negative take-away.  She is the pastor of an older congregation, many of whom have Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.  She said, "If our stories define who we are, what happens when we can no longer remember those stories? If we are our stories, when those stories are lost, are we lost too?"  And in her words, I realized exactly what had been troubling me throughout the conference.  

          My mother has Alzheimer's.  In her case, it is not so much that she has lost her stories, as that her stories have changed, dramatically.  She is at the place in her illness where she tells outrageous stories of mistreatment (in particular), some that she claims happened years ago, some that she believes to be happening in the moment.  None of them are accurate.  For example, when my father went outside to get something from the car, she informed me that "that man has left me and I don't know what I did!"  I explained that Dad had just gone to the car to get something and she insisted that "No.  He's left me.  He's not coming back."  When he came back in and I said, "See, here he is!" she gave me that look of an abandoned, mistreated child and turned away.  That same afternoon as I made her a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, she told us that when she was a kid she was not allowed to have sandwiches.  Again, I have enough stories of her childhood, shared with me both by herself and her siblings, to know that this is not in fact true.  Still, in that moment these stories were true for her.  

          The stories that might once have defined her, that might once have made her into the person she is are gone.  Nonetheless in so many ways, my mother is still the person she has always been. Her personality is the same in many ways.  There is consistency in who she has become, even with the Alzheimer's.  And while that, too, may change (after all Alzheimer's does take us away from ourselves  and our loved ones, one painful step at a time), she is more than all of that.  She is more than her face and her body (which are changing for all of us all the time).  She is more than her memories, or her lack of memories.  She is more, even, than her personality.  She is more than what she has done and what she has left undone.  The conference answer to the question of who we ultimately are seemed to center completely on stories. And while the conference solution to the fading of memories was that "We therefore need to be intentional about sharing our own and each other's stories" and "In the end, God will remember our stories even when we cannot," I have to say that I found both these answers unsatisfactory in many ways.  

         I agree with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin when he says, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience."  As humans, we are given the experiences of this life: all of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and stories are a part of that.  What our brain does, with its gifts and its limitations, and yes, its stories, is a part of that experience.  Frankly, the experience of Alzheimer's and other dementia is often also a part of our human experience, a part of living.  It is not an easy part, but it is still a part, still an experience that we have here on this human journey.  And as a person grounded in the deep belief that we are more than our experiences here, more than this human journey, I have to believe that our identity, our meaning, our grounding goes beyond our stories.  

        For me, then, ultimately who each of us is, is a deeply loved, seen, understood and valued child of God.  And, big picture, each of us is part of a whole: deeply, intricately connected to every other part of creation. When we lose our stories, when we lose our memories, when we lose our abilities, and our functionality, and even our personalities, we are still valued, loved, deeply important pieces of a bigger picture that is a wondrous creation.  Each of us are a unique and beautiful drop in the ocean of life.  We are still children of God.  And we are still spiritual beings experiencing that painful and difficult part of the human journey as well.  Again, it is not an easy part of the journey.  But with every breath we take, the Spirit remains with us, accompanying us in our human journey, and being present with us even when that journey ends.  Ultimately, then, we return to being simply the spiritual beings that have had a human experience.  That is who we are, even when the stories are gone.

Cycling through Forgiveness as we Cycle through Grief

        I don't believe forgiveness is a linear thing, anymore than grief is.  And today I was struck by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, because the two are so closely related.  

    Anger, we are told, is a secondary emotion, and it usually is a cover for sadness, or grief (or fear).  Forgiveness is a way to let go, to release that anger from our bodies, from our minds, from our beings.  Grief is not linear, so forgiveness won't be either.  As we cycle through the pain of loss, and especially the anger of loss (one of the stages of grief), we will probably need to forgive again.  Also, just as new losses can push us into reliving old losses and can bring up that old grief all over again, new things that anger us can cause us to remember at a cellular, emotionally based level old injuries and present us with new opportunities to work towards forgiveness again, hopefully at a deeper level, for what has happened in the past.

    This came up for me this morning as a scripture I read threw me back into an injury from almost two years ago, and the realization that while I had forgiven it at the time, I would now need to work to forgive it again.  That while I had grieved the loss and the pain of that injury at that time, that it hurt again, that it cut again, and that I would need to grieve it, going through the denial, negotiation, anger, and depression again to come to a place of acceptance and then forgiveness once more.  Ugh.  

    Grieving is hard work.  Forgiveness is, perhaps, even harder work.  It requires us to remember the humanity of the other, and to have compassion for their challenges and their histories that have impacted who they are today.  It means letting go of the anger by walking through it to the other side.  It means experiencing the pain of loss once more.  And then, deep forgiveness requires self-reflection as well, and asks of us a commitment to look with intention and integrity at our own part in a situation.  If a person cannot be self-reflective, forgiveness is unattainable.  The more self-reflective a person can be, the more quickly a person will be able to pass through to forgiveness.  But it seems that self-reflection is not really something we value too much in our current culture.  It is a difficult calling to look at our own failings, to own them, to admit (or confess) them and to attempt to make amends for them.  I deeply believe it is the only way we can truly heal, but it is a challenge many simply cannot face.

    I am reminded of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow's about Voldemort.   He said that even this evil man could heal all the horrible, awful things he had done.  There was hope for him, but it was only to be found in a decision on his part to look, to see what he had done and to feel remorse.  Dumbledore also admitted that the pain of that remorse would be worse than he could imagine.  And, unfortunately,  it was a pain Voldemort was simply unwilling to experience.  

    Even with small things, people can be scared or afraid to self-reflect.  And that fear of the pain of self-reflection keeps us from forgiveness.  One might ask then if we are able to do that work and are able to forgive, why do we then have to forgive again?

     Just as each time that grief resurfaces we have an opportunity to dive a little deeper into healing that grief, each time anger rises at another person, we have the call to dig deeper into compassion, self-reflection, and ultimately forgiveness.  

      Again, none of this is easy.  As I sat with my own grief, pain and anger this morning I realized how much easier it would be for me to just remain hurt and angry and not do the work of self-reflection or the work of remembering that the others have histories and pain, too, that I need to approach with compassion and grace.  It would be simpler to stay mad.  To be holier than thou.  To allow the anger and judgement to build safe but isolating walls between myself and those who hurt me.  It would be so much less work.  It would also be "safer".  I would then no longer have to be vulnerable to their actions, to their ability to injure me.  I could walk away and self-righteously declare that I did not need that kind of "friendship," and that this loss of relationship was THEIR loss for not treating me right in the first place.  I could do that.  But I would be lying to myself if I did.  And I would miss an opportunity for deeper healing for myself.  

    So today I once again choose the harder path.  I will take the time I need to journal and reflect, to grieve again, and to own my part in the problem.  I will do what must be done to heal at the next level, and more, to forgive again.  Their intentions and their choices ultimately are immaterial in this.  The forgiveness must be given for the sake of my own soul, my own peace of mind, and my own walk towards wholeness.  I would wish for all of you to find that peace as well.  Blessings on your day.

Seasons of Loss

        This last year seems to have focused an inordinate amount on loss for us.
        As a congregation we read the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014) which discusses end of life decisions and questions that are important for us to name and explore with our family members BEFORE the time comes for those decisions to be made.  It is an amazing book full of relevant stories and one I would recommend to everyone, regardless of your life situation, your age, your circumstances, or even your beliefs.  Death is a part of life and the sooner we recognize and plan for what we really want at the end, the better prepared we, and our loved ones who will walk us through the endings, will all be.
        This was followed by our Faith and Film night movie being If I Stay, which tells the story of a young girl caught between life and death and needing to make a decision about whether to live or not since her nuclear family has all been lost to the same accident that placed her in this limbo state.  This was a very thoughtful movie, bringing up questions of agency in our own endings but also family roles, what ultimately matters to each of us, and what decisions we make that either mirror our true values or act against them.
        In the midst of all of this my brother in law died, at the age of 52, from a stroke.  There was no warning, and no way to prepare. It just happened, leaving my husband and his family reeling, grieving, confused, and lost. 
        A few months later, the priest at the local Catholic Church died, at the age of 61, in a car accident.  He was a man I worked with and served with (I am one of the church's pianists) and who left behind a deeply grieving congregation.
       Then at the end of November my uncle, age 69, died of a heart attack.  Also an unexpected, unanticipated, very sudden, and very big loss for us.  That was the third unexpected, tragic death in the course of six months.
        Finally a friend I care about very much is dying of cancer.  This is now imminent.  She is a solo parent, and she leaves behind two teens.  And while cancer at some level leaves more time for loved ones to prepare, it is still devastating.  She is young, her children need her, and the loss around this feels huge. 
       All of these losses are in addition to those I usually face as the pastor of an older, aging congregation.  The deaths of older persons are still not easy, even though they may be more expected. 
       As I said, it has been a year of loss.
        I have found myself saying repeatedly to my family as they have walked through this year of loss, "Well, people aren't meant to live forever."  And that's true.  Reality is that we are all walking towards death.  None of us get out of the this life alive.  Our own deaths may seem more distant, but we walk towards them just the same, and as most of our losses this year show, "distant" could mean just around the corner.  Things happen, life happens, suddenly at times.  
        As I said above, death is a part of life: a natural, expected-at-any-moment, other side of the coin that is living.  While I will be the first to admit that I don't have a clue what death really means for those who leave this life, while I find that scripture really doesn't have a lot to say about after-life (though there have been many misinterpretations that say otherwise), still I have a sense of some kind of continuance. I believe strongly that whatever death looks like, we are loved through it just as we are loved through life. Additionally, I have never felt that my relationship with someone is over once they've died.  I still talk to those who've died.  I still imagine, and sometimes feel, I might actually hear their responses.  I still feel their presence or spirit as something that continues within my memories of our times together, in the retelling of their stories and in the ways I have learned, grown, and changed because of them.  I still meet them in the ways that those around me also have been changed and the ways their lives reflect the values and lives that those who passed have led.
        But still, with all of this, grief is real.  Our relationships with those who have died are different now.  We can no longer call them, or check in with them, or see what they are doing in the same way.  Sharing a meal or going for a walk together, having a good laugh, hugging and connecting with a touch or smile - these things are no longer possibilities.  It's no longer possible to make new memories with them, to have experiences together in the same way, to physically be in the same space, sharing, working, playing, being together.  And that changes everything in a day to day way.
       So I'm left with the same questions I always have - what do we do with this?  What are the lessons for us in times like this, and where do we take our grief when it can be overwhelming?
        First, grief is different for every person.  Even within those differences though, it isn't something we can avoid or put off or ignore.  It has to be walked through in order to move us to a new place.  This is never comfortable, but it must be done.  Trying to not feel our grief means it will erupt in other, potentially harmful ways.  We are given these feelings as a pathway to healing and feeling them is the only way through.
       Second, we don't walk this alone.  God is there with us experiencing this as well.  We have a companion in this who sees beyond us and is there to love us through it all.  But also, all of us experience loss.  All of us experience grief.  We've been given community to walk with us and to care for us.  Finding people to share your grief and feelings of loss is so important during these times.  Standing with one another, supporting one another - these are essential.
      Finally, I believe our grief, our sense of loss, our devastation sometimes, is a sign of just how deeply we care.  It is a reminder of something absolutely beautiful and that is the love we have for one another.  Grief can also remind us not to take for granted what we have this day, this moment, in this place.  It can be a gentle push to honor those with whom we travel THIS day knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee.
        Be good to one another, because we do not know when is the last time we will see someone.  We do not know when will be the last chance we have to tell a person we love them, value them, see them as a beautiful person.  Apologies, expressions of gratitude, kindnesses, words of love and grace - all of these cannot be offered too often, or too soon.  

Watching our fledglings leave the nest

         I've been feeling very down lately.  Anxious, sad, stressed, depressed.
         Lonely.
         I couldn't figure out why.  Yes, we've experienced an important family death lately.  But I felt that didn't really account for the level of my anxiety and sadness.  It certainly didn't make sense to me that I'd be feeling lonely while surrounded by family, while reconnecting with family folk I haven't seen in forever, while anticipating my daughter coming home from school for winter break.
        But then I remembered that it was that time of year which is always hard for me, or has been for the past 9 years.  9 years ago my life changed radically and I went from being a partnered person caring for my three thriving kids into a solo mom dealing with tragedy and stress and loss and trying to help my kids through the same.  This time of year, every year, I feel this way.  I think that our bodies remember, our bodies house those memories associated with season and time, even when we don't consciously remember what is triggering our feelings.
        But this year is also different for me in another way.  My eldest daughter has "gotten it together," is leaving the nest, is spreading her wings, making friends at school, not calling as often and certainly not needing my help or support as much. She is learning well how to "adult," and she is stepping into doing what needs to be done on her own, she is living her awesome, beautiful life in ways I don't even begin to understand.  She is connecting deeply to others, to her peers.  She is doing it right.  She is doing what we all hope our kids will do - stepping into being her own person and taking flight.
       The truth is that I am struggling with it.  When I became a mother, even though I was working and still had friends and other family to occupy my time, I moved into a new identity.  My primary identity became that of being a mother.  I love being a mother.  I think about my children constantly, even when I am not with them, they are the lights of my life, my biggest joys, my greatest gifts and the raising of them has been my biggest accomplishment.  This became doubly so when I became a solo mom.  They were where my focus had to be.  Their concerns became my largest challenges.  Their needs and fears and sufferings took the largest part of my attention. Truthfully everything I did, and have done ever since, including working, has been to make sure they have what they need and are okay as they step into life.  I had to do this, or they would not have become the healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids (in the face of and despite great crisis) that they have become.  The fact that my eldest is thriving in school and in her life is in part a testimony to the depth of love and support I gave her that has enabled her to bloom, to work through her losses, and to grow into a beautiful young woman.  I know this.  I can't take full credit, and I won't.  We were surrounded and continue to be surrounded by a community of helpful, caring people and they have credit too.  Eldest herself also needs to take a lot of credit, for being willing to do the work, to grow, to learn, and to step forward.  But I can claim a piece of it.  They know they are loved beyond measure.  They know they are more important than anything to me, and that I would do anything to make sure they are healthy and happy.  That knowledge and that experience has made a difference in their ability to move and grow and live.
       Still, I find myself feeling a little bit like Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree.  When they were born I gave them my apples, fed them off of the sweat and tears of my work and my care.  But when we went through crisis I gave them not only the branches, but my very trunk so that they might survive and thrive.  Again, I made a choice to do what I believed was necessary for them to be okay.  And it has paid off for them.  But now I am the stump, especially where my eldest is concerned.  I am waiting for her to come home and rest for awhile on that stump that is me before she leaves again for other adventures.  And this is a sad and hard thing for me.  I won't change it.  I will not ever choose to hold her back from her dreams and adventures, from her living her life as fully as she can.  But I am lonely for my eldest daughter.  And, at some level, for my other two children as they become independent teen-agers.
       I think about the olive tree in our back yard.  We cut down this huge olive tree because it was blocking the window, causing problems on the roof, was creating great mess both in the yard and tracked into our house, and, most importantly, it was creating pollens which were making my son (with his allergies to olive pollen) very sick.  We cut it down to a stump, and yet it has not given up.  Hundreds of new branches continue to sprout from the sides of the stump each year.  Each year that tree makes it clear that it belongs there and has no intention of dying.  I know that I can choose to be a stump like the olive tree: to find new ways to grow and thrive once my kids are gone.  I can invest more in other relationships now and to find my purpose, meaning and identity in my work and other activities.  I can and I will.
       I also know, though, that this still involves grief. Every change is a loss at some level.  And grief is a natural part of watching our kids grow and leave the nest.
       Today I am grieving my daughter.  Even as I am proud of her and grateful for who she is becoming, I am grieving our closeness, her needing me, her dependence.  I am grieving being the person she was closest to whom she loved the most.  I am grieving the primary identity I had as Eldest's mom.  I will always be her mom, but it can't be who I am first and foremost anymore.  My life has to be more about other things now, and less focused on her.
        I know most parents go through this, and I know that I, too, will survive it.  Being a parent is about self-less love.  We don't do it to have people always around us who will love and care for us.  We give of ourselves and watch the blooms grow that are our children.  I am so grateful to be mother to my three wonderful kids.  The grief is just a small part of that.  But I am naming it today in the hopes that others who might be feeling similarly know they are not alone.  And to name for myself that the sadness I'm feeling is okay.  It's a testimony to the depth of the love I gave and give still.  And for that I am grateful.

The Fragility and Unpredictability of Life

          On Thursday afternoon I drove to pick up my kids from their two different high schools.  I picked up Youngest first and then drove to get my son.  I pick him up on a side street several blocks away from the school since, without busing as a possibility here in CA, every other kid is also being picked up at the school and it is a complete zoo.  I had driven our electric car to the place where I pick him up.  In this car, the front door has to be open in order to open the back door to let someone into the back seat (it's a dumb design, but there it is).  Youngest opened the front door and before we could open the back door a dog ran over to the car and put his big head in Youngest's lap.  I said "hello, friend!" to the dog and reached over to scratch his head.  After I scratched his head, though, he then decided that he was going home with us and he tried to jump into the car, into my lap, crossing over Youngest.  At that moment two women who'd been walking nearby ran over, asked us if the dog was ours, and said they were on a mission to find the dog's owners since they'd found the dog wandering around by himself in the next block over.  "No, it's not our dog."  I said, to which one of the women responded, "Well, he clearly WANTS to be your dog!" before she helped pull the dog out of our car so my son could get into the back seat and we could head home.  The dog was very resistant to being pulled out of the car, and it seemed to me that he kept looking at me with a pleading in his eyes that was not unmoving to me.  If we did not have three cats, I would have offered to bring the dog home until the owners could be located, and might even have adopted him if the owners couldn't be found .
           The next morning I learned that the head priest of our local large Catholic parish was killed in a car accident that same afternoon (about a half hour before I was picking up my son).  I knew this man.  Not well, but we both were part of a local clergy group and I am the pianist for the choir at the Catholic parish that sings for memorial services.  Since it is a very large parish, they have memorial services on a weekly basis (the choir doesn't sing for all of them, but many of them) so I am at the church, often playing for services over which he has presided, on a very regular basis.
           Both of these incidents: the death of the priest, and the encounter with the dog, are very present in my mind.  I realize these two incidents cannot be compared in terms of gravity, importance or seriousness.  The loss of Father Mat is a huge, incomprehensible, deep loss for several large communities of people.  It is tragic and devastating in so many ways.  I spent much of the weekend talking with people who have been personally and deeply affected by this tragedy, and I imagine that these conversations will continue over the next few weeks and even months.  In contrast, the incident with the dog is only present in my own mind.  It is small.  I am hopeful that the dog's owner was found, and that the dog is happily back with his people.  I met this dog for all of five minutes and will probably never encounter the dog again.
           And yet, still, both of these incidents are strongly with me.
           To me they are both moments that emphasize how fragile and unpredictable life is.  Everything can change in a moment.  Life can be lost, devastation can occur, tragedy can hit in a second and the worlds of many people can be changed, instantly.
           At the same time, and what we notice with less intensity, less interest even, is that there are new friends to be made, new encounters and new opportunities, new "openings" of our minds, our thoughts, our experiences - all of these also can occur in a moment.
           Losses are often instant.
           Unexpected gifts of encounter or opportunity or new connection are also often instant.
           There is a difference.  Usually, we have no choice about the losses.  Often there is nothing we can do to control what losses come and how they change our lives. We can choose how to walk through them, but we cannot control whether they come.  People die.  People leave us.  Life happens and others make choices that affect us in ways we cannot predict, cannot control and cannot prevent. In contrast, gifts must first be seen, and second, accepted, if we are to allow them to change us, move us, and help us to become better, fuller, and richer.  Both the losses and the gifts call us to make decisions.  Will we accept with grace what life has to offer us this day, and what will that look like in this particular moment?  We don't control if they come, when they come, or how they come. We can only take what this life hands us and decide what we will do with what we are given in each moment, each day, each life-time.
            Today I find myself grieving.  But I am balancing that with the memory of the gifts that also come suddenly and unexpectedly.  I am easing my own sense of loss by remembering the encounter with a friendly dog who instantly loved us and wanted to be with us.  Does it make the grief go away?  Of course not.  But it does remind me that life is more than just the losses.  It is deeper than just the grief.  Life gives and life takes.  God is in both, walking with us, grieving with us, and celebrating with us, too.  In that realization I find peace, even when the healing has not yet come; and I find promise, even though the path through grief is often steep and long.  I am grateful for the journey, even when the road is rough, even as I remember how fragile and unpredictable life really is.

Coming to Jesus

Acts 16:9-15

John 14:23-29

Today’s scripture is part of Jesus’ final speech to the disciples before his arrest and crucifixion.  It is a small part of a much longer speech in which he repeatedly says that if they love him they will follow him, love each other, do what he tells them to do.  He also repeatedly tells them that he is leaving them, and then he reassures them with promises that the Spirit will come to be with them.  Today I want to focus on this second part – Jesus’ telling the disciples that he is leaving and his reassurance about what is to come.  

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt abandoned or left?  I imagine there have been times for all of us when we have felt that someone has left us.  If that someone is someone we cared about deeply, that loss, that abandonment can be devastating.  Sometimes those feelings of abandonment might not even seem logical to us, but still they come.  A loved one must leave on a work trip, or leave on a military deployment.  Or a person dies.  But even then, even when the loved one does not choose to go, it can still feel like abandonment when it actually happens.  We can still feel that we have been left, that they left us and as a result we can feel angry, hurt, devastated.

This feeling doesn’t just happen with people.  Have there been times when you have felt abandoned by God?  That God is somehow not there for a time when things are hard?  It is not sinful to feel that way.  As we will talk about when we do our series on the psalms, all of these feelings are normal and natural and acceptable to God, too. That’s why we have so many psalms that express these feelings.  They give us permission and words to express feelings of pain, of isolation, of abandonment, that are just plain normal at times.  Sometimes it is hard to feel God’s presence.  Sometimes God’s presence comes to us in different ways, ways we might not recognize as easily.  And I think that when we are feeling abandoned by a person or by people, it is especially easy to feel that it is actually God who has left us.  That somehow, if God really loved us, we would not have been left by the person we love, that they would have lived, or wouldn’t have gone away, or wouldn’t have moved or wouldn’t have rejected us.  And again, while that may not be logical, it is a very human experience.  It is very human to feel that it is God who has left when it is in fact a person whom we love who is no longer present with us in the same way.

I think about C.S. Lewis’ book, A grief Observed (New York: Seabury Press, 1976). C.S. Lewis, as many of you know, was a remarkable Christian author who wrote both novels such as the Narnia series as well as theological conversations such as “The Four Loves” and “Surprised by Joy”.  In 1945 he experienced the death of a close friend.  About this death he said, “The experience of loss (the greatest I have yet known) was wholly unlike what I should have expected.  We now verified for ourselves what so many bereaved people have reported; the ubiquitous presence of a dead man, as if he had ceased to meet us in particular places in order to meet us everywhere...” he continued, “No event has so corroborated my faith in the next world as Williams did simply by dying.  When the idea of death and the idea of Williams thus met in my mind, it was the idea of death that was changed.” 

But 15 years later, in 1960, his wife of very few years, Joy, died. And that experience was also unexpected for him - but in the complete opposite way. As he said in the journal he kept following her death, “After the death of a friend...I had for some time a most vivid feeling of certainty about his continued life; even his enhanced life. I have begged to be given even one hundredth part of the same assurance about Joy. There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero.” And in contrast to the experience of the presence of his friend’s death changing his faith for the better, after the death of his wife, his faith was tested beyond measure.  As he continued, “Go to (God) when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find?  A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.  After that, silence.  You may as well turn away.  The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.  There are no lights in the windows.  It might be an empty house...not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God.  The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him.  The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God’s really like.  Deceive yourself no longer.”

Deeply disturbing words of pain and despair from a deeply faithful man.  Have any of you ever felt that way?

God knows and understands this very human experience.  God expects and anticipates this very human experience.  It is for this reason that Jesus spends so much time telling his disciples what is to come and offering the reassurances he does.  Jesus is about to leave them, he is about to be crucified.  For all of our experiences of abandonment by friends or family, how much worse for those who knew Jesus?  Jesus was not only their friend, he was their Lord, their Savior, their God.  He taught them.  He fed them.  He cared for them.  He gave their lives new direction, new purpose, new meaning.  He opened up life for them, he touched them and connected them with God in a real, concrete, new way.  He became their all, their everything, their reason for being and living.  But now he tells them that he is leaving and asks them to be happy about it because he is going to God the Father.  He tries to add more reassurance.  He tells them he is sending the Spirit.  And he tells them he will send them off with his peace.  He tells them to not be afraid.  And he tells them to not let their hearts be troubled. 

And so, what do you think?  Do all the reassurances make it all okay?  Does it work for Jesus that because he has said all of these words, the disciples are therefore at peace when he is killed and are happy for him to be with God?  Are they untroubled and unafraid when the crucifixion comes?  Do they “believe” because he has reassured them and laid out for them what is to come?  Well, as we talked about last week and as we can imagine in the aftermath of today’s reading….Not so much.

The truth is that we are connectional beings.  We are people to whom loving and being loved are as important and crucial as food, water, and even air.  Babies who are not held and touched die.  If they have no one to whom they form an early attachment, they struggle to connect normally to others throughout their lives.  We witness this with other creatures, too.  There was an experiment some time ago in which some monkeys were offered food and water, but no care at all, while other monkeys were given stuffed animals and even others were held and cuddled and comforted.  The monkeys who were just offered food and water languished and died.  The ones with the stuffed animals did better, but still could not relate to other creatures.  Only the monkeys who were offered care and cuddling thrived and became “normal” adult monkeys. 

There is also the story I shared with you two weeks ago of Owen and Mzee.  Owen was a baby hippopotamus who was a sole survivor of a terrible storm.  He was rescued and put in a reserve with a bunch of other animals.  Immediately upon being released into the animal refuge, he attached himself firmly and completely to a cranky old tortoise named Mzee who wanted nothing to do with Owen for the first 24 hours.  Owen followed Mzee around and cuddled up next to Mzee and Mzee tried again and again to walk away from Owen.  But after only about a day, Mzee somehow got it that the hippo needed him, and maybe Mzee discovered that he needed the hippo, too.  The two became completely inseparable, eating together, sleeping together.  Both thrived through that connection, through that attachment.  And we experience this sense of abandonment with our pets, too – even those who appear to not like each other “grieve” when another family pet dies. 

I’ve shared with you before the wonderful story of the difference between heaven and hell.  In hell, there is a big feast spread out on the table, but the people sitting at the table have no elbows.  They desperately try to feed themselves, but are unable to get the food to their mouths because they cannot bend their arms.  In heaven the picture at first glance looks very similar.  There is a big feast spread out on the table, and again the people sitting around the table have no elbows and are still unable to feed themselves.  The difference, though, is that at the table in heaven, everyone is feeding each other.  And while this story points out that it is only in caring for one another that we are fed, that it is only in caring for one another that we are truly and deeply fed, there is another message here, too, and that is about the importance, the necessity of community.  We picture heaven as a place where our loved ones who’ve passed are waiting for us, a place where we can connect with those we love and stay connected.  Where loss, death, abandonment are no more. 

            But in the mean time, we have to face it.  Every human relationship will end in its human form.  We will lose everyone in one way or another.  People move, people change, people have tragedies happen and ultimately everyone dies.  So whether we are doing the leaving or being left, in human form, we will lose everyone.  And each one can feel like abandonment.  I don’t want to just ignore that, or lighten it, or push it quickly aside.  Those feelings are real, and they deserve our attention, our care, our time.  I think about what C.S. Lewis also wrote about situations in which well-meaning friends could not tolerate his pain, and how much damage that inability to sit with his pain caused..  They couldn’t tolerate it, and so they tried to shove it away with trite quips.  His favorite was “Well, she will live forever in your memory.”  And he found this created nothing less than an intense rage within him as he struggled to grasp, daily, that she was no longer alive, no longer with him in a way that he could recognize while he was in the midst of his deepest grief.  To tell him that she would live in his memory did nothing for him but make him feel completely alone in his grief - in other words, it had exactly the opposite effect of what was undoubtedly intended.  It did not make him feel better.  It made him feel misunderstood, isolated, and alone.  I do not want to do that by rushing through the real and tangible feelings that we have as we grieve.

That being said, I am also called upon on Sunday mornings to deliver the Good News.  And the good news in this is huge.  First, we are reassured that death and separation are temporary.  No matter how it feels, no matter how bad it feels, we are connectional.  God created us this way and I believe God will return all of us to connection.  Also, even in this life, we have Jesus’ reassurances, which are not just about his leaving, but ours as well.  “My peace I leave you” Jesus says.  And “I will send the Spirit to be with you.”  That spirit is our advocate, our comforter, our companion when we are lonely and alone.  “Do not be afraid” he tells us.  For there is nothing to fear – God is with us.  And finally, “I am going away, AND I am coming back to you.”  The end is not the end.  Death is not the end.  Connection will continue.  God will continue.  Christ will and does continue.  And through Christ, we, too, continue in connection with God and with our loved ones.  Amen.

All Saint's Day: Life and Death

Ezek. 37:1-14

John 11:1-45

The old time pastor was galloping down the road, rushing to get to church on time. Suddenly his horse stumbled and pitched him to the ground.  In the dirt with a broken leg, the pastor called out, “All you saints in Heaven, help me get up on my horse!”

Then, with superhuman effort, he leaped onto the horse’s back and fell off the other side.

Once again on the ground, he called to Heaven, “All right, just half of you this time!”

“Jesus wept.”  The shortest verse in the Bible.  “Jesus wept.”  What does it mean to you that Jesus wept?  What do you think about Jesus weeping?  

Today we celebrate All Saints Day, and while by “all saints,” we include ourselves (because “the saints” are all of those who are communing with God both during and after life), it tends to be a day when we honor, remember, celebrate, and grieve those who have gone on before us. We remember our loved ones who’ve died.  We celebrate the lives they led, and we remember that death is a temporary physical separation from those we’ve loved.  Death is a change in our relationship from one which is material, to one which is purely spiritual.  But while All Saints Day is a day to remember and celebrate, it is also appropriate that those memories would bring up some grief for us as well.  And All Saints Day is a day to honor those feelings as well, to remember that while we can rejoice in lives well lived, while we can celebrate the end of pain, while we can carry forward the legacies of those who led the way forward for us, while we can honor those who’ve passed by leading the best possible lives forward that we can, none the less, there is grief involved for each of us when a relationship changes from one of physical interaction to being simply one of remembering, celebrating, or speaking to our loved ones that have passed without tangible reassurance or promise of an answer.  That grief is a good thing.  It is a sign of the depth of the love we have for the other.  And it is a God-given experience: an opportunity to express the changes that happen within and without when someone we love has passed.

Sometimes people struggle to accept the grief they feel, thinking that in comparison to others, the loss they are experiencing is minor.  Or they feel they shouldn’t grieve as long as they do. Or we feel that we should just be thankful for what we do have and not mourn what we have lost.  I cannot tell you how often people say to me, “I shouldn’t feel this way.  I’ve been so lucky…”  But grieving is not unfaithful.  It is a recognition that we have loved and loved deeply.

“Kierkegaard said, ‘the most painful state of being is remembering the future… particularly the one you can never have.’ ”   I want to say that again, “The most painful state of being is remembering the future…particularly the one you can never have.”  In other words, the deepest grief comes when we realize that the future we envisioned for ourselves, for example, with another person, is no longer a possibility. 

Grief is an invitation to work that through.  When we are able to do that, then we can live lives that honor and celebrate those who have gone on before us.  When we try to stuff the grief, that is when we get into trouble.   

Many years ago, a parishioner died whose husband had spent the last thirty years caring for her.  It was his purpose and his focus in his life to care for her.  And when she died, her husband was left not only with the grief of losing his wife, but also with the feeling of having lost his purpose and his meaning in life.  He could not deal with the pain and he avoided

it by jumping into another relationship almost immediately, interestingly with someone who also needed a great deal of care.  He was remarried within six months of his wife’s death.  But while that whirl-wind romance put off his feelings of grief for awhile, it could not keep them away in the long run.  The result was that he then had to do his grieving within the context of a new marriage.  His new wife, not understanding grief, felt hurt by his pain over his wife who had passed.  She felt that he hadn’t let go or that he didn’t really love his new wife enough.  It made their relationship very difficult as he struggled both to live within his new relationship and to honor his old relationship through the honest and natural process of grieving.  In addition, the woman whom he married, as I mentioned, was also extremely needy and probably not someone he would ever have married had he taken the time to heal from his last relationship.  He jumped in to this relationship, he ran away from his grief into this relationship, not making the best choice for the long term.

That’s not to say that grief has to look the same for everyone or that there is one right way to grieve or even a right time line.  There isn’t one right way and grief looks different for everyone.  While grief specialist Kubler-Ross identifies as normal parts of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance, there is no prescribed order to these feelings and many experience them in different amounts, at different times, and in different ways, sometimes experiencing each of these stages multiple times and again in multiple ways, other times skipping one or more of these stages altogether.  Other grief specialists add “pain and guilt” into their lists of normal feelings associated with grief saying that even in cases in which a person could have done nothing differently, we feel guilty about things not done, about things that might have been done, things that should have been said.  But however one experiences grief, grief is a natural, normal process in life that we can’t avoid as human beings, as real honest people.

I remember a conversation I witnessed in which a parent was trying to protect their child from grief, keeping the loss of their grandmother from the child, not allowing the child to attend the memorial service, telling others not to mention the grandmother around the child, removing the child from any situation in which the grandmother’s name might be mentioned.  The mother thought she was doing what was best for her daughter.  But the daughter in her wisdom, as she grew a little older, finally told her mother, “I have to go through this. By forbidding me to grieve, you are taking away from me something that is extremely important and beautiful.  Please don’t take my grief away from me.”  Unlike her family, she understood the deeper truth that not going through the pain of grief was in some way denying her something important.  There is a gift in that grief.  There is a gift that is hard to see when we are in the midst of deep pain.  But the gift of grief is that it leaves us open and able to see things as they really are.  It leaves us able to move on, to heal, and to be ready for what God will bring in the future.  For Christians, the gift in the celebration of the Saints who have gone on before us is that we are invited once again into a deeper relationship with God, for God is with us in our grief, grieving with us as well.  And God is the God of resurrections, bringing new life out of every loss.  But again, we have to grieve, have to go through the death of the past in order to be open to the new life that God brings.

And that brings us back to today’s verse, “Jesus wept.”  It can feel difficult to understand this verse at some level because Jesus kept saying to all those around him both before and after Lazarus had died, that Lazarus would live.  Jesus knew that Lazarus was not really gone forever.  In light of that, what does it mean that before he raised Lazarus from the dead, that he wept for him?  How could his grief have been sincere when he knew his loss was not long lasting or real?

I belief Jesus’ grief was real.  I think that Jesus realized, and reminds us through his grief, that new life never looks the same as old life.  A resurrected person doesn’t look the same or act the same as a person who has never died.  We are changed by the losses we experience, the deaths we live through.  Roberta Bondi sums it up well in her book “Memories of God” with these words, “Even Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.”  Jesus, too, was not the same after his resurrection and he knew that Lazarus, too, would not be the same.  He grieved the Lazarus that died because the Lazarus who was raised would not be the same.  He would be different, he would be changed by his experience of death.

The reality is that it is hard for us to look at those wounds, the wounds of life, the wounds that have forced us into lives different from what we imagined.  It is hard to accept that even though new life has come, the old life is gone, really gone.  But it is.  Lazarus died.  He truly and actually died.  And while Jesus was able to bring new life to Lazarus, he first had to grieve for the life that had died, the life that was, the life that ended.  That, to me, is the message in that one very important Biblical passage, “Jesus wept.”  Jesus knows that we, too, must grieve for what was, grieve for what has past, for what is over, for what is done.  It is only through grieving and letting go of the past that we can really truly be open to the wonders of the present, to the gifts of the now, to seeing the new life around us.

Those two simple words, “Jesus wept” give us permission to not just live in the Easter celebration of new life, but to grieve the death that preceded it as well.  “Jesus wept” gives us permission to recognize that every change includes grief, and that it is okay to feel that even as we look towards new life.  Jesus wept.  And we can, too.

I want to end by reading you a poem by Washington Irving:

There is a sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,

of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

            So today, I would like to invite you to come forward and put your pictures on the tables that are set up and name the Saints that have meant something to you.  If you would like, tell one good thing about that person.  If you did not bring a picture or a momento, I invite you still to come forward and say the name of someone whom you are remembering this day.  For this is our celebration of the Saints: all those who have blessed our lives, and continue to do so with our memories and celebrations of their lives.

A ramble on crisis, strength, and children.

           Recently, my kids and I were watching one of the many science fiction movies in which a father must choose between going out to save the world or staying at home to care for and raise his kids.  As always in these movies (because there wouldn't be a story if he chose otherwise), the father opts to sacrifice his time with his children in order to save the world, leaving them for years and sometimes life-times, to fulfill his mission.  And we all nod and agree that, of course, that is the right choice.  We don't give it a second thought.  And we see the man as the hero the story makes him out to be.  After all, he gave up so much for the sake of the world.
          So did the kids.  And they had no say about it, no choice about it.  There are victims in these stories, victims whose fates we don't see or acknowledge because, after all, the fate of the world is so much more important than a couple kids.  Right?
          Everytime I see one of these movies I find myself angry.  Why was it that it was only that person, that man, who could save the world?  And why was the cost the kids?  And why do we fail to see that or to care about the kids, except as losses to the hero?  Despite what these movies show us of strong and happy children growing up confident in the knowledge that their dads are heroes and that the kids themselves are loved and just have this little inconvenience, this tiny self-sacrifice that also puts them in the categories of heroes for giving up their dads in exchange for the salvation of the entire world; despite what the movies show us, the reality of kids growing up without a parent is very different.
        Here are just a few of the statistics:  taken from The Fatherless Generation
         

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.

• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.

• 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Center for Disease Control)

• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average.  (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)

• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (National Principals Association Report)
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• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average.

• 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)

• 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)

       These are just a few of the many statistics based on many studies that show what happens when kids grow up without their fathers, for whatever reason.  While the heroes may have saved the world in one way, what harm have they passed on to the world through creating homes with fatherless children?  What radiating damage was caused by this choice?  

       As I watched this movie with my kids, I made a comment that I felt the choice the dad made was wrong.  I was surprised that my kids all disagreed with me.  They said they felt the dad had made the right choice.  I argued with them that it wasn't fair to the kids.  "Maybe, " was the response.  "But the kids will be stronger because of it."  Really? That's not what the studies show.  They don't show stronger kids, they show broken kids, damaged kids, kids ready to inflict the same pain on the world that the world inflicted on them. "Are you stronger?" I asked my kids who have lived without their father for the last 5 1/2 years.  

      "Yes,"  they all answered, "we are."

       No, they aren't.  That is a myth we tell ourselves so that we can feel better about the fate life has handed us.  That is the story we proclaim to make the tragedies of this life acceptable.  But as the mother who lives with the victims of their particular tragedies, as the one who cares for them and watches them every day, I can tell you about the wounds they carry in great detail.  Since I don't want to betray their confidences or tell their stories, I will name the one that is most obvious: the fortresses my children have built around themselves, thick and strong, are what they identify as personal strength.  But I see those walls for what they are: they are walls made of fear, they are a way to hide from the world, they represent a commitment to refuse to allow others into their inner sanctums so they will not be hurt again.  Those walls do not represent strength, they represent brokenness and fear.  And that truth is painful for all of us, every single day.

       I love our stories, our cultural myths, that say that we grow from trauma, that we grow and become better, stronger people because of the crises we've experienced.  But the truth is that I believe that growth and improvement in reaction to large traumas is rare, an exception that comes with a great deal of commitment, courage and intentional choice to bring good out of pain.  I see those people who grow and become better folk through their traumas, especially the huge ones, as the exception to the rule rather than the norm.  I've been blessed to know some of those people who have taken their traumas and allowed them to make them better people.  But I also know far too many people who have become bitter, or entrenched in their one-dimensional belief systems, or become fearful and angry because of what they have gone through. And even those people who have grown through their traumas still carry scars, still carry trigger points.  I don't know anyone who has gone through a substantial crisis who walks without a limp, who is not damaged in some way. When it comes to children, these traumas are especially difficult to work through.  The very fabric of who each child is becomes changed, becomes resewn, rewoven into a different tapestry.

       My kids are not who they would have been had they not gone through their experiences.  Kids in war torn countries, kids living with poverty, kids growing up in abusive homes or in terrible situations will never be who they would have been otherwise.  No amount of counseling or education or family support can give them back the childhoods that they have lost, or can take away that limp that defines them. These defining childhood stories change way too many kids for the worst, taking away from them a sense of hope or joy or possibility.  That breaks my heart.  

       And while I have always valued the stories of growth and change and strengthening, I wonder what we miss by repeating these stories to ourselves.  Wouldn't it be better to acknowledge the truth that these childhood traumas are severely damaging and that rather than believing good comes out of them, it would be better to work hard to limit those traumas in the first place?

       Life is hard, and we won't be able to stop all trauma.  But perhaps facing the true damage is a better choice than living in a denial bubble that says we are strengthened through the crisis, especially when it comes to our children.  Perhaps this has to start with the stories we tell.  Perhaps the next story I see about a father leaving to save the world will focus instead on the children left behind; on their story.  Or perhaps the next story will focus on the choice the parent (male or female) makes between saving the world and being with his/her kids.  Perhaps in the next story, the parent will choose to stay with the kids and to find someone without small children who can save the world in their place.  And maybe that next person will do a better job anyway.  And the parent who chooses to stay behind will be a hero to the kids for choosing the kids, for choosing to love and care for and raise them.  That is a story I would love to hear.

A Different Kind of Grief

I've been thinking lately about the very different kinds of grieving that people do.  We tend to lump all grief together, we identify stages and experiences that people go through, no matter what kind of grieving they are doing, and while we "rank" grief (death of a spouse is worse, for example, in our minds than death of a acquaintance or perhaps a pet), that ranking shows in many ways how little we understand about grief.

Each person grieves differently, and each loss for each person is experienced differently.  Yes, there are some similarities: most people experience some form of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (others identify different stages which can include guilt, pain, loneliness, reconstruction and hope in addition to the others mentioned).  Most people revisit other times of grief, other losses, as they go through whatever current loss they are facing. For most, the order of these feelings and stages varies and there is a bit of "cycling" where you may pass to one stage then back to one you've experienced before then onto another and back again.  This can happen rapidly or slowly.  Sometimes, regardless of the kind of loss, people can get stuck, mostly when they are unwilling or unable to actually feel all the feelings that arise with a particular loss, or when the loss continues to cause other problems for them.

But regardless of these similarities, there are also so many differences.  I've been thinking in particular about the difference between a death and a 'break up' of any kind of relationship, be it friendship, a schism in a family or a partnership.  The stage names may be similar, but they look very different.  For example, the "bargaining and denial" stages after a death usually don't last too terribly long because the reality is you can't bring someone back.  Once they are gone, they are gone.  But after the ending of a relationship where both people are still alive, the denial and bargaining can go on for years.  We've all heard of people who still hold a torch for their exes years and sometimes even decades after the relationship has ended. I find that within those stages there are also different aspects than perhaps occur after someone has died.  One sub-stage is a vilifying of the other, which may not always happen but often does.  In this aspect or sub-stage of denial, the end of the relationship occurred because the other is just wrong, evil, messed up.  We deny our own part in the ending because we can't face it.  We exaggerate the others' part in the ending because it hurts too much to think we would be "left" or that the relationship would fail because of anything other than our partner or friend or family member just being an awful human being.  Another aspect which combines the denial and bargaining stages is a continual hope that somehow things will be resolved or that reconciliation of some kind will be possible, especially if things ended with animosity.  Most of us don't like the idea that someone out there hates us, or feels negatively about us.  And I think most of us would wish for that to resolve, for the other to see through whatever our issues and behaviors have been and to desire healing and good will in the end.  Even when we know this is an impossibility, even when we know it is not best for either of us, even when our smartest, most mature selves would balk against any renewed interaction that might look like the potential for reconciliation because we know it would lead to other problems, be unhealthy, or cause more damage, we still hope for it in our hearts as part of our grieving process.

The point of all this?  While it has been a huge step forward that we now recognize that grief is a process that takes time and that there are different and normal stages that most people experience through grief, we still have a ways to go in understanding how every grief is different.  While models of grieving initially are helpful so that we have a framework for understanding grief as a natural and healthy process, failing to see each grief as the unique experience that it is can damage our ability to be truly empathetic with what another person is feeling.  Each grief is its own.  Each loss will be handled and experienced differently by each person.  Trying to box a person into a particular stage, and scheduling out how long or in what way that stage should be "mastered" won't help. The more we can simply be with one another through whatever the other is experiencing, the more we can support each other in moving through grief. The worst thing we can do is to tell someone else to get over it, or to feel something other than what they are feeling in the moment. The best we can do is allow another to go deeper into whatever the feelings are so that they may emerge on the other side.  That means we have to let go of our preconceived ideas about what each grief should look like. There just isn't a right way to grieve.  And there certainly isn't a map through the grief process.  There isn't a "one size fits all" way to walk through our losses.  I say it again: each grief is unique and the process through each loss will therefore be unique.  There isn't a right or wrong, and there isn't even a "better" or "worse" way through.  It will be what it will be.  And the best we can do is hold hands as we walk our journeys.

The Nature of Grief

I've been thinking more about the nature of grief.  Here are some things we know about grief:

Everyone grieves differently.

There is no prescribed amount of time for grief since it is different for everyone.

Some common feelings associated with grief include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, though often there are other feelings as well: shock, guilt, regret, loneliness, and finally hope. Still, because grief is different for everyone these stages don't necessarily go in any kind of order, and they can cycle and recycle back around.  Also, not everyone will experience all of these, and each person experiences them in different ways.

Grief is a process.

Grief affects a person physically as well as mentally and emotionally.  It can affect sleeping, eating, memory, judgment, concentration, cognition - all of it.  It doesn't mean you are going crazy when you experience these things.  They are part of grieving.

Griefs, or rather losses, pile onto each other.  In other words, every new loss can bring up all of the old losses.  You don't know which losses will affect you the most because you don't know which ones will bring up the old losses at the deepest levels.

Telling people to "get over it" is extraordinarily unhelpful.

We don't know what someone else is experiencing in grief, so the best we can do is to walk beside, to walk with, and to listen without judgment.  We can't hurry someone else's process, and trying to do so usually results in unhealed and prolonged grief.

It is really important to go all the way through the grief, no matter how uncomfortable that may be, because unresolved grief does not allow us to be the whole people we are meant to be and may interfere with our abilities to risk and trust again in the future.

With all of this wisdom however, the bottom line is that losses hurt.  And that while it may seem that we should be able to gain some ability to handle grief better with each additional loss, in fact, because each new loss brings up all the old losses, each new grief can feel like the weight of the world dumped onto us once again. Each time a major loss (or any loss for that matter) happens I find myself wondering if this is the one that will completely destroy me, if this is the one that I simply won't be able to get through, if this is the one that is just plain "too much".  And all I can say is that, like with everything else, we are called just to take one day at a time, sometimes one step at a time, one breath at a time.

Remember that you don't walk this alone.  There are people here to help.  There are people here to care and to offer love and support.  There is help when it feels like too much.