On Grief
This is possibly going to be a depressing or unintentionally offensive post, so move on if you are not in the mood for that.
There has been a lot of grief recently in my life, starting about two months ago, I lost a good friend. Now, some good came of it, like re-connecting with some other friends that I had lost contact with, but loosing Paul was quite a blow. The grief of loosing a friend is different than losing, a relative, a favored pet, a co-worker…all but the last I have experience with. So I know the flavors of grief, as do many of you.
There is also the pain of losing a child, which is one I can only kind of understand, but Paul was 37 when he died of a heart attack. So that’s young, and his mother, as any mother would be, is beside herself. She’s a strong woman, and expresses her grief differently. She also knows the pain of loosing relatives, most too various wars or skirmishes, but she also knows the pain of loosing another child, her other son.
It’s been two months and, yes, I still miss Paul and have this little burning coal in my heart every time I think of him. But this did not prepare me for a mother in grief. I know what it’s like to have your hope and dreams snatched from you, to wonder “what if?” about things. But to have had a child for 37 years, to have watched him grow and develop and mature. To have held his hand when he was sick, hurt, happy, scared, in love. I don’t know that pain.
For me, I have accepted that Paul is gone, he was a good friend, and at times he was as close to me as my friends can get. But my pain is gone, now I just miss him, wonder where he is, wonder if I’ll see him again. His mother’s is so fresh it was wounding to be near.
They say there are five stages of grief, I say not everyone goes through them all. I don’t think She ever went through denial, I mean, this is kind of hard to deny. But she is still mad, mad at Paul for not taking better care of himself, mad at herself for not taking better care of Paul, mad at the world for abandoning her. Not a screaming raving mad, more like a simmering, quite mad that comes out in soft words.
I don’t think I’ll ever see her cry, she’s not made for that. You don’t burry half your family and then break down over packing your kitchen up to move. But the little cracks are there. She’s moving to get out of the house Paul and she lived in, she’s saving his bedclothes because they smell like him, she’s sick because she’s so miserable she can’t take care of herself. That's heart sick, that's grief.
Greif makes you do weird things, makes sane folks crazy, makes happy people miserable. It makes you question God and why this grief is on you. You can’t comfort grief. There is nothing you can say or do to make it go away, except bring back the object of the grief. Even if I did fully understand what it was to her to lose Paul, there would be nothing I could do. I say “I know, I understand.” But I don’t, I can’t.
I think about loosing people, and it makes me cry. If I lost my best friend, I don’t think I would ever recover. I’d be shattered, and I’m not sure I’d have much nice to say to God about it.
So why grief? What do we get out of it? Why do we feel it, what purpose does it serve?
She and I talked about God because, I know that I was there because of God, God had her call me last night and ask me to come help her pack, and God made it possible for me to arrange my schedule so that it wouldn’t be a problem. But I stood there with her, talking and listening to her tell me about the grief counseling, and I though, wtf? What am I dong here? There is nothing I can do to make this better, why did you bring me here? Was it to show me that there was a greater grief than the one I have now? Was it a chance to re-connect with Paul, after the fact? Did I help in any conceivable way, other than packing the Kitchen and promising to return tomorrow? Why was it so important for me to be here with this woman I hardly know and can’t help? What?
I wanted to wrap this up with something significant or meaningful, but I can’t get my mind around it. Why? Why this pain that hurts to the core? Why can’t it be smoothed by something? I don’t think God uses such horrible tactics as grief and pain to get us to turn to God, but then who? And what was I supposed to have done? Did I do it? Did I accomplish my goal that I was sent there for?
I send this out into the great wide world because, I got nothing…I don’t know…I just got this thing in me that's like, wtf? And I can’t answer it. I know this has some purpose to God, but just once, I’d like to know what God knows so that I could maybe understand.
There has been a lot of grief recently in my life, starting about two months ago, I lost a good friend. Now, some good came of it, like re-connecting with some other friends that I had lost contact with, but loosing Paul was quite a blow. The grief of loosing a friend is different than losing, a relative, a favored pet, a co-worker…all but the last I have experience with. So I know the flavors of grief, as do many of you.
There is also the pain of losing a child, which is one I can only kind of understand, but Paul was 37 when he died of a heart attack. So that’s young, and his mother, as any mother would be, is beside herself. She’s a strong woman, and expresses her grief differently. She also knows the pain of loosing relatives, most too various wars or skirmishes, but she also knows the pain of loosing another child, her other son.
It’s been two months and, yes, I still miss Paul and have this little burning coal in my heart every time I think of him. But this did not prepare me for a mother in grief. I know what it’s like to have your hope and dreams snatched from you, to wonder “what if?” about things. But to have had a child for 37 years, to have watched him grow and develop and mature. To have held his hand when he was sick, hurt, happy, scared, in love. I don’t know that pain.
For me, I have accepted that Paul is gone, he was a good friend, and at times he was as close to me as my friends can get. But my pain is gone, now I just miss him, wonder where he is, wonder if I’ll see him again. His mother’s is so fresh it was wounding to be near.
They say there are five stages of grief, I say not everyone goes through them all. I don’t think She ever went through denial, I mean, this is kind of hard to deny. But she is still mad, mad at Paul for not taking better care of himself, mad at herself for not taking better care of Paul, mad at the world for abandoning her. Not a screaming raving mad, more like a simmering, quite mad that comes out in soft words.
I don’t think I’ll ever see her cry, she’s not made for that. You don’t burry half your family and then break down over packing your kitchen up to move. But the little cracks are there. She’s moving to get out of the house Paul and she lived in, she’s saving his bedclothes because they smell like him, she’s sick because she’s so miserable she can’t take care of herself. That's heart sick, that's grief.
Greif makes you do weird things, makes sane folks crazy, makes happy people miserable. It makes you question God and why this grief is on you. You can’t comfort grief. There is nothing you can say or do to make it go away, except bring back the object of the grief. Even if I did fully understand what it was to her to lose Paul, there would be nothing I could do. I say “I know, I understand.” But I don’t, I can’t.
I think about loosing people, and it makes me cry. If I lost my best friend, I don’t think I would ever recover. I’d be shattered, and I’m not sure I’d have much nice to say to God about it.
So why grief? What do we get out of it? Why do we feel it, what purpose does it serve?
She and I talked about God because, I know that I was there because of God, God had her call me last night and ask me to come help her pack, and God made it possible for me to arrange my schedule so that it wouldn’t be a problem. But I stood there with her, talking and listening to her tell me about the grief counseling, and I though, wtf? What am I dong here? There is nothing I can do to make this better, why did you bring me here? Was it to show me that there was a greater grief than the one I have now? Was it a chance to re-connect with Paul, after the fact? Did I help in any conceivable way, other than packing the Kitchen and promising to return tomorrow? Why was it so important for me to be here with this woman I hardly know and can’t help? What?
I wanted to wrap this up with something significant or meaningful, but I can’t get my mind around it. Why? Why this pain that hurts to the core? Why can’t it be smoothed by something? I don’t think God uses such horrible tactics as grief and pain to get us to turn to God, but then who? And what was I supposed to have done? Did I do it? Did I accomplish my goal that I was sent there for?
I send this out into the great wide world because, I got nothing…I don’t know…I just got this thing in me that's like, wtf? And I can’t answer it. I know this has some purpose to God, but just once, I’d like to know what God knows so that I could maybe understand.