Category Archives: Struggling Life

A Better Place For Who? Grief-ism #2

“He’s in a better place.”  

We all say it and it’s not that I don’t believe it. Someone like me, who cut my preschool teeth on the doctrines of the church and has spent my entire life processing through the principles of my Biblical heritage, certainly believes the claims made by Christ himself and others in scripture:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:40

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.“ 1 Corinthians 5:1

To the believing thief on the cross Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43

To all of us who believe we return to God when we leave here, to all of us who affirm, “To be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), we instinctively know those who die before us are in a better place.

The problem is they’re not HERE with us. Not anymore. Not ever again in this life. And that matters. A lot!

Mike’s absence created a falling domino effect of chaotic change, problems, logistics, emptiness, longing, yearning and loneliness, impossible to describe. A grief so deep and guttural I knew it could rip me apart.

I‘m not one to engage in comparisons of what is worse. Death is hard, for those left behind,  regardless of how it comes. Maybe if he had been sick over a span of time, maybe if I had to watch him disintegrate through prolonged suffering I could say this platitude with more acceptance. But the brutal long goodbye was not my experience so I can’t know. We had no goodbyes at all. He was here. He was fine. Then in a moment he was gone.

Yes, undoubtedly he is in a better place. But while Mike is there, I’m not, and the knowing of this does not balance the scale of grief. However it occurs, our person being in a ‘better place’ is still that person gone for the rest of our life. What I do know, is that in the early raw days of his death, hearing this statement wasn’t comforting. At all. 

What this statement repeatedly told me is Mike is doing great, he’s fine, but my loss, my pain, the fact that I am most certainly not in a better place without him didn’t matter. What I was suddenly up against, this tornado turn of events, felt unacknowledged and completely negated by reassurance that all was well for him, while everything that was normal and secure for me was spinning out of control. 

Of course, there’s no intention of harm when we repeat these catch phrases in someone’s loss. Nothing I say here is meant to criticize only inform. Often we’re so uncomfortable in the stark reality of another’s grief, we feel the need to offer something and these Hallmark card sentiments are all we have.

The truth is there are no words to cheer up the reality of death and for certain nothing can ‘fix’ it. Nothing can begin to fill the void, replace the absence or replenish the emptiness. Nothing but acknowledgement of suffering and personal presence.

At times the overwhelming emotion and personal isolation of grief can also minimize these but with time (lots of it), patience, understanding, listening, hugs, prayer and practical help, we can validate and enter into another’s suffering.

“I’m so sorry, but I‘m here. I‘m with you. As much as I can be. For as long as you need,” is the best offering we can make.

 

Happy Mourning: Grief-ism #1

Those grieving a loss hear this one often, “But he/she would want you to be happy.” 

So what does this really mean? Don’t grieve for them? Pretend the one human, who for the most years and who gave the most meaning and joy to life, is still here? 

Impossible!

The thing is, no one gets to tell you how to grieve. Not even your deceased person. Not even THEY get to dictate how much you hurt or how much you miss them because they’re gone.

Would Mike want me to be happy? Of course. One of his goals in life was to keep me happy (and I him). But neither of us could ever know how hard it is to be happy without the other.

We don’t know how to minimize the giant hole that just opened up and sucked everything that was normal, safe and stable into it so mourners resort to masquerading happiness because that makes everyone around them back off and feel better.

The fresh, horrid grief of those early days has subsided and I finally experience moments of happiness. Small rays of light in the darkness that is Mike’s absence. But it’s taken this long and still, after all this time, an underlying operating system of continual sadness runs in the background of everyday life.

And that’s the point. We can’t rush people back to cheering up or looking on the bright side. The bright side looks bleak and dim for someone who has suffered such monumental loss. Rebuilding an unwanted life from the ground up takes time.

Trish Harrison Warren, author of Prayer In The Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep, says, “We are taught to minimize grief.” 

Allow grievers the time they need to be in their sorrow, let the trigger tears and heart crushing pain play out.  Weep with those who weep, for as long as they weep. 

Eventually we will rejoice with them, because we stayed around long enough to see them discover joy again. 

Only then are we better practiced in comforting the broken hearted.

Resurrection

Her only son is dead. And she’s a widow. Women in her time and culture, had no means of survival or sustenance outside of a husband or son providing it. She is suddenly plummeted into uncertainty and poverty.

We find Jesus walking with his disciples into the town of Nain, and into the middle of this scene, just as this broken hearted, grief stricken widow and her accompanying mourners carry her son’s body outside the town gate to a burial place.

There is no mention this widow had ever heard of Jesus. She didn’t run to Him as others had, begging for help, pleading for the life of her son. Immersed in the depths of loss and sorrow, she was unaware of His presence. 

Grief consumes. It overwhelms everything. At Mike’s memorial service and in the months following, I was mostly unaware of who and what surrounded me. People rotated in and out of my days, brought things, did things, hugged, spoke words. 

I barely remember any of it. It’s all a blur, still. A horrid slow motion video with sight, sound and activity taking place on the far edges of my existence. None of it making sense in the permanent absence of the man who, for years, had been my most intimate partner in life. 

I was the walking dead, a zombie going through the motions of the legalities and responsibilities Mike’s death had suddenly thrust upon me. The entire time my mind repeating like a scratched vinyl record, “He’s dead, he’s gone. How can this be real?” And my heart screaming in refusal to accept what my head already knew. This was it. It’s done. He’s not coming back to us anymore. 

There is this me that understands what the widow was feeling, but what I find most stunning about this account is how it completely implodes the long standing belief that it’s our job, my job, to have ‘enough’ or ‘more faith’ so God will notice, show up and do something. 

How do you have ‘enough faith’ when you can barely breathe? When your heart throbs with aching and your mind is a hurricane of fear, confusion, shock? When you’ve lost all appetite for food, are sleeping only thirty minutes a night and are so physically exhausted the only thing keeping you upright is the adrenaline of grief? 

How?

“And when the Lord saw her..”

That’s it right there! She didn’t see Him. She was unaware. Blinded by her sorrow. Deaf in her lament. 

He saw her. 

“He had compassion on her..” His heart suddenly exploded with mercy and love. 

He understood the desperation of her circumstance and without needing ANYTHING from her. Without being asked. He dried her tears and touched the stretcher that held her son’s cold body. 

Everything and everyone stopped as he returned life to this little family.

Though I begged and pleaded for it at the moment of Mike’s death, I, of course, didn’t get a resurrection story. At least not in the way I would have preferred.  Wouldn’t that have been awesome!

But what I find comforting and am coming to understand, is in the midst of pain, confusion, anger, suffering, sorrow, Jesus is always doing resurrection work. It’s not easy this coming back from the dead, but His compassion, mercy and love does not look away. Never forsakes or abandons.

He Sees. Notices. Touches. Renews. Resurrects.

Even when I don’t know how to trust. And even when I don’t have ‘enough faith’ to see.

It’s Who and What He Is and Does. 

Luke 7:11-15 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live”

Breathe

I have always been a believer in the truth that our breath is God given. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” Genesis 2:7.  

We don’t own our breath. We borrow it. He supplies it for life on this planet and when that last breath leaves our lungs we return to Him. Humans have no ability to create the absolutely necessary intangibles of breath and air. They belong to our Creator and thus, we belong to Him.

The evening I returned home to find my late husband dead, I instantly couldn’t breathe. In fact it was difficult to breathe in the weeks, months and even the first year following that life changing event. For months, I gasped for air in the middle of reoccurring panic attacks and often held my breath without realizing it. Breathing, which occurs involuntarily and without thought, became something I was constantly and noticeably aware of in Mike’s absence. The loosing of him literally took my breath away and I wonder now, if the abnormal heart arrhythmia I began experiencing in the months that followed, were tied not only to my broken heart, but possibly a full lack of oxygen it needed to function properly.

In this pandemic year, the literal masking and partial breathing of the oxygen our body needs to fully function has been hard on all of us. We’ve become afraid of the people and air around us. Breathing has suddenly become scary. Fear, suspicion and grief hold us in their grasp as we deal with a variety of great loss – health, loved ones, finances, safety, security, freedom and a lack of cultural civility.

During the past several years the importance of intentionally taking time to stop and breathe has often rescued me. Father God has repeatedly reminded me, His breath is inside me. He holds my life in His heart and hands. I need not fear what is happening around me. Do I still? Yes. Of course. More than I should. But He is patient to reassure when my thoughts wander into crazy territory. He understands how afraid and emotionally frail I am. He has deep concern for my humanity.

He doesn’t condemn, but calls me to be still. Sit quietly for a while. Turn off the noise. The news. The social media. Eat a healthy meal. Drink some water. Share my thoughts with a trusted friend. Stand outside for a few minutes. Walk in nature. Take in the beauty of His creation. Talk to Him with raw and open honesty. Exhale the anxiety and the pervasive and swirling negatives. Inhale Father’s goodness, allowing His peace to permeate the spirit and soul once again. And put this on repeat, like a reminder notification, popping up daily (or even hourly) on a mobile phone.

In the midst of these trying times, every now and then, we have to take the mask off our face and our soul and simply breathe. Don’t forget.

Breathe. 

Breathe. 

Just Breathe.

“The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job 33:4

“..he [God] himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” Acts 17:25

 

Adapting or Accepting?

It took about three weeks of random days, doing a section at a time, but I finally finished pressure washing the pool deck today.

As I was pulling the weeds that grow between the pavers with pliers, because my arthritis crippled fingers aren’t strong enough to grasp them, I was thinking about how adaptable humans are. How we endure and adjust to life’s difficult twists and turns.

The Serenity Prayer has been quoted for a long time: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.”

I‘ve had to adapt to many difficult challenges through the years and realize of late, that I have always had a problem with the acceptance line of this quote. I‘ve never been good at accepting what I can’t change because I’m not sure I should. To me acceptance means giving up, giving in to a thing and allowing it to rule, and I see little in scripture or history where that has ever been a good idea.

My first son was born with a genetic disability, and while I accept and love HIM for who HE is, I have never fully accepted the imitations disability has placed on him. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done everything possible to help him reach his full potential through the years. Have I adapted to how his disability affects him, me and our family? Yes, and continue to adjust daily. But I have never rejoiced that my son has not been able to live his life the way others do. I have never stopped grieving in the depths of my being that he still needs continual supervision as an adult. I know in my heart God’s original creation was never meant to be this way, so complete acceptance still alludes me.

All the ways I’ve adapted to having a crippling chronic illness, beginning in my mid-twenties, are too many to list here. Pulling weeds with pliers is just one of hundreds. Learning to eat properly to reduce inflammation in my body is another. Acceptance means I would give up. Lay in my bed, drink soda pop and eat donuts, howling in pain, expecting others to do everything for me. There are times when we need others to do for us, but ‘the wisdom to know the difference’ is part of adjusting to our situation.

I can never accept coming home from grocery shopping to find the man I loved for forty three years, dead. Just like that. Gone. No. Never. Because I know physical separation, death in this life, was never God’s intention from the beginning. Death was chosen and since then, we all live with the physical consequences of this choice. So after a lifetime of marriage, I’m at a new level of adaptation. Learning how to be single. How to be alone. How to get things done that are hard for me to do.

So many of the tasks Mike did are now mine and I’m slowly adjusting to all these new responsibilities; knowing when I should and who I can call for help, who I can trust and when I can do a thing myself. I‘m certain I‘m making mistakes, bumbling along, asking for wisdom, help and endurance to figure it all out but I also understand I have to be patient, even with myself. I’ve been dropped suddenly into new territory, without a map or GPS, and this journey requires a steep learning curve.

As humans we grieve all our losses. Some impact us so deeply, that we never think of them without feeling that sludge hammer of sorrow to the heart and it is a huge misinterpretation of scripture to believe God asks us to deny this reality. What He wants is to be invited into it. To meet us there. To walk with us in and through.

So while I will not blindly accept any of these things that were never His original intention, neither will I pretend they don’t exist. I meet them head on with HIS strength and guidance. I have little of my own.

Many days are exhausting and difficult, but I must not, cannot, settle into acceptance. I must keep trying. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep enduring.

By Father’s great grace I adjust. Adapt. Pull weeds with pliers and keep going.

Just Be There

Jon is often a night owl and I sometimes try to be one with him, just to be with him. A few late nights ago, I was lying on the sofa watching determined chefs attempt to cook their best dish in a ridiculous amount of time, competition.

Jon was rustling around in another part of the house.

At one point he came and stood behind me and began repeating, “He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.”

I‘m never sure if Jon is parroting a movie line he’s heard or trying to express a thought. I turned the TV volume down.

“Who’s gone, Jon?”

More repeating, “He’s gone. He’s gone…”

I asked again.

“My Dad. He’s never coming back.”

Grief does not play out on a short path. The journey is long and arduous. We have moments now, when we laugh and smile, but there’s still a pile of sad and edgy and raw and vulnerable. There’s still many days it’s difficult to wrap our brains and hearts around the truth that Mike is missing from us. 

My son in his simple, yet profound voice has stated, here we are, still struggling.

Where will this journey take us? I don’t know. I do know this. When our son was born, I had to become an advocate for the disabled. A few years later I was run over by chronic illness and eventually took up the banner of reclaiming health through lifestyle choices. Now that close and sudden death has taken my breath away, I will become a spokesperson in this modern, sanitized, look the other way, death and grief illiterate western culture, for those whose hearts break. For those who walk the long, shadowed path of living after great loss.   

If it’s true that our mess becomes our message, then it appears I’ve been given something to share. I volunteered for none of these difficulties, (I mean, come on, who does?) regardless, I’m learning our brokenness is not to be hidden or disregarded, but is meant to come along side another, reach out, weep, hug, love with feet and hands on, encourage, and proclaim, “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to fix this but I will not run from your pain. I will not ignore your struggle. I see you and I am here.”

In the time of His greatest sorrow, Jesus wanted his friends near him. As he grieved and struggled with what was ahead, he longed for human companionship. Near-ness. 

“What, you couldn’t even stay awake with me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40) There was nothing his follower friends could do to change what was about to happen but He needed to know they were there for Him. 

I have come to believe our main calling and purpose in this life is to walk beside each other in all of it’s joy and brokenness. To show up. To just be there.

Do that for someone you know today.

And I pray, if and when needed, someone will do the same for you.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 

A Jon View of Loss

I found this photo today, upside down on an end table in the family room. An old one, judging by how we’re dressed, possibly taken in the late 1980’s or early 90’s. 

A snapshot of happier days with Mike’s youngest sister and husband, and me and what used to be my husband. Used to be is the key phrase here, because two years ago my husband died. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. And as you can guess, he was in this picture. If you look closely his hand is draped over my right shoulder.

As soon as I flipped this photo over, I saw Mike had been scratched out. And I knew who did it. But I wasn’t sure why. What I do know is Jon is still internalizing the loss of his father, as am I, and though he’s spoken little of it from the beginning until now, this is proof.

I took the photo to Jon, put it down in front of him and very gently asked, “Jon, why did you you scratch your dad out of this picture?” It was a shot in the dark to ask and I really didn’t expect an answer from my mostly nonverbal son.

He glanced at the picture and looked away. “He’s gone,” was the reply. So much sadness in his expression. So much hurt and pain in his eyes. Maybe my disabled son thinks scratching his dad out of a photo somehow makes it all go away. I wish it was that easy. Wish I knew Jon’s thoughts. Wish we could have that conversation. Wish he could open up and pour out everything he’s feeling inside. But he never has. He doesn’t have those words. 

So he just makes his father disappear. 

In the past we’ve been told by ‘experts’ and believed that grief is on a timeline, it’s not. Two years is nothing compared to the lifetime we had Mike with us. Thirty seven for Jon. Forty three for me. So you will excuse us if it takes us that many years to ‘get over him.’ Please?

Honestly, I doubt we ever will. As much as we would love to scratch the sorrow and pain of loosing him away, we can’t. Mike not being here has impacted us greatly and it’s painfully difficult. Still. We are so aware of his absence, his physical presence missing here, in our daily life. 

Time does not erase the memory of him. Or the loss of him. We’re simply learning, with the passage of days, months, years, how to live without him. Maybe time will permit us to be better at that. I hope so, because scraping Mike’s image off every photo we can find, certainly won’t. 

In the days ahead, I pray I can find the wisdom to help my son’s heart know this. And mine too.

A Widows Prayer

Good Morning Father. I’m awake. 

Another day, and my first thought as always, is he’s gone. 

Still. 

His side of the bed unruffled. 

Comforter flat and wrinkle free. 

Pillows smooth and in place.

Here I am without him. 

Again.

I can’t do this widow thing. 

But You can.

I can’t do this single mom/caregiver of a grown son with disabilities thing. 

But You can.

I don’t have enough faith. 

But You do.

I am without hope. 

But You’re not.

I’m not strong. 

But You are.

So I will push this blanket back. 

Put my legs over the side of this bed and my feet on the floor.

I will stand and get ready for whatever this day brings.

I’d rather pull this blanket over my head and stay right here. 

But You’re with me.

He’s not here. 

But You are.

Thank You for never abandoning us. 

You and Your Son have not forsaken me and mine.

You have and are everything I need.

I place my trust in You.

We will do this day together.

Here we go.

Useless Words

I admit, I‘ve run out of words.

Well, ‘run out’ might not be the exact terminology. Words still exist, but they are a continuous whirlwind of thoughts, crashing into each other and shattering in uselessness to the bottom of my brain. I‘ve been asked, why I‘m not writing and posting regularly like I was. When you can’t make sense of anything, expression can be difficult.

Everything I once thought I knew, believed, subscribed to, seems trivial and irrelevant. All the knowing-of-things I once held dear, is nothing but the fluff of a spent dandelion blowing in a tornado.

I need to drown out the noise of this world, the constant chatter both past and present, ricocheting off the walls of my heart and mind. So many words and ideas others have spoken into me since childhood. Piled deep and high. I’ve been stripped inside to the nakedness of my soul and exhausted by years of ideas, opinions and dogmas I have heard and still hear.

Confession time? Complete honesty? All my cards laid out on the table? I‘m too tired to figure it out anymore. Too broken to put me back together. I‘ve reached the end of myself and I don’t care how unspiritual it looks. The mask is off. I can’t fake it ‘til I make it. Can’t stomach the cliches and pat answers I always thought were truth.

I am asking God to help me understand Him in ways I never have before. I am begging my Father to reveal Himself to me. Not from the interpretation of others. And not from my own contrived misconceptions of who He is. But for Himself. 

What about Him do I not know? What about Him do I not understand? If I’m going to move forward from here I desperately need to hear His voice and understand His heart. 

For me. 

There’s little to say right now.  I must be still and learn to know He Is God. I‘m like Mary, who after the angel appeared to tell her she would bear God’s Son in human flesh, pondered all these things in her heart. 

Or Job, who after striving with so much sorrow before his Creator, put his hand over his mouth and shut-up, realizing he had spoken things without knowledge, from the limits of human reasoning.

Or Paul, who considered everything he had ever accomplished prior to knowing Christ, the power of His resurrection and fellowship of His suffering, nothing but garbage. Manure. Useless.

The encouraging news in the dark night of my soul is this; even the dandelion, that blooms, withers and blows away, is rooted in solid ground and when the winter is over, lives again. Even the garbage heap can be recycled into new usefulness. Even the manure pile is tilled back into the earth to enrich a new harvest. In the fullness of time and the proper season of renewal, all can be restored.

So in this season, I exist on what I still know that I know to be true. God is good. He is faithful. He does not abandon. And He loves me. 

At present little else matters to me. It is all the words I have. And it is enough.

For now.

 

Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I Am God.”

Luke 2:19 “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

Job 40:4-5 “I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”

Job 42:3 “I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Philippians 3:8-10 “ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

Lamentations 3:22-24 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Matthew 28:20 “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

Broken Bootstraps

The American Dream was built on a mind set of individualism and independence.  The idiom ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ is deeply ingrained in the western worldview and taken to a positive outcome has helped our country and culture evolve into an innovative and creative influence in the world. 

The origin of this descriptive phrase isn’t known. It refers of course to boots and the straps that some boots have attached to help the wearer pull them on and to the imagined feat of a lifting oneself off the ground by pulling on one’s bootstraps. This impossible task is supposed to exemplify the achievement in getting out of a difficult situation by our own efforts

There are life circumstances that come along and leave us so weak, broken and devastated  we have no strength left to pull ourselves up or out. Our own efforts are dismantled and truthfully God never meant for us to rely solely on our own striving and limited human understanding in life. We are designed to depend on Him and each other. 

So what do we do when our bootstraps are broken? Who and what do we rely on when our inner resources are drained?

I’ve been told many times in the past months to ‘stay strong’, ‘be strong’. Not helpful. You can’t be strong when you’re not. It’s like asking someone with broken legs to walk on them. Anyone with logical thinking understands this is a crazy expectation. 

These are the times we are to be strong for each other, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,“ Galatians 6:2.

What is the law of Christ? Jesus made it clear before He went to the cross. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another,” John 13:34. 

Loving each other means there will be times we are called on to carry someone else when they are too weak, too devastated, to carry themselves (even Jesus needed help carrying the cross to Golgotha). 

It means we will need to cover another with our own faith in their time of lack. We step into their situation, however uncomfortable, not to advise, fix or offer theological cliches, scripture quoting or explanations for suffering, but just to be near, to hold up, to ‘weep with those that weep,’ We show up. We climb into the devastation. We stay for the duration.

We are all meant to be boot straps for one another. There may also be times when we need to be someone’s boots, never mind the straps! 

If someone near you is too broken to pull themselves up, pick them up and carry them. Transfuse some of your own presence, strength and faith to another for a while until they are back on their feet.

You never know when you’re own bootstraps might be broken and you’ll need someone to carry you.

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.” Romans 12:15-16