There’s a reason people in our culture avoid grief. Many reasons, I believe. If I had to sum it up like I would to my four-year-old, it’s because we don’t want to hurt. We want to be comfortable. Now, I know it’s not that simple. It’s a many-faceted, cultural, societal, belief-oriented question: why do we as a culture seem not to know how to grieve well?

Examples of this: 3 days of bereavement leave from most employers. Lots of bows put on hard or horribly painful situations. Not knowing what to do when someone is hurt (because we haven’t been taught. It hasn’t been modeled. It’s not part of our culture). Being told to grieve in private. Don’t show it. Strength being seen as pushing the tears back and staying composed.

I strongly disagree. The more I walk out through this grief, the more clearly I am seeing. Strength is not pushing down the pain but facing it. Feeling it. All of it. Without numbing or shifting or distracting from it. It takes an incredibly strong person to feel the brokenness of this world. Many people don’t have any good reason to do this. Other than, perhaps, being told it’s good for us. Like spinach or exercise or being selfless: things we know we should do because they’re good but sometimes we don’t feel like doing it. If we don’t let the pain out, it only hurts us and others more, right?

At the end of the day, we all believe something about life and its meaning, and it shapes how we live, deal with pain, make our choices. You’ve probably gathered by now I hold a Christian perspective, but since there are so many people who use that label who are nothing like Jesus, I need to define what I mean. That’s what I will do about grief from my belief system as a Christian.

The more I walk this horribly broken road with Jesus, the more I can tell you he doesn’t push us away from pain. He doesn’t tell us to stuff it. He has continually been inviting me INTO it. He isn’t giving me religious platitudes. He isn’t telling me to stop crying because Mom is ok and out of pain. He’s drawing me into feeling just a touch of the brokenness of the world in this grief. And he’s in it with me. It’s beyond my understanding how he can grieve with me for my mom’s death while hanging out with her in paradise. Yet he does. It boggles me that he counts my tears, keeps track of them. If they’re in jars, I must be filling up a lot. Yet he is.

Why? Why invite me/us into pain? What’s the point? What is the freakin’ point? I have still spent most of my life trying to avoid pain. Someday, I hope, that statistic will turn around where I will have spent more leaning into pain than running from it. I’m not there yet. Anyway, back to why?

I don’t know. I’m not God. I don’t understand it all. One thing I do understand is that since my Savior walked this broken road of suffering, since he became intimately acquainted with our grief, since he feels and knows our sorrows, and by doing so, brought about the rescue of all rescues, then I can trust him. I can trust he will bring beauty from ashes; life from death; strength from weakness. It’s what he does. Everything upside down, the weak things to shame the strong.

So yes, it may look weak to our culture to fall apart when your loved one dies. It may look “un-Christian” to grieve. But it is not. It takes immense strength, and follows in the path of Jesus himself.

One song I’ve heard at Christian funerals now bothers me to no end, because it encourages this “stuff the tears”, harmful mentality. One line goes, “When I go, don’t cry for me. In my Savior’s arms I’ll be.” Couldn’t be further from what Jesus would say. Though it’s true, if this person loved and followed Jesus, that they are with him, you think he also doesn’t grieve over the death, the horror, the evil that has leeched onto his perfect creation and twisted it? You don’t think that doesn’t break his heart? To see the people he loves more than we’ll ever understand suffer? It’s hard for our human brains to comprehend both sides of his greatness and his emotions, but we need to understand that he will both bring life from death AND weep because of the darkness. Like I’ve written about before, Lazarus’ death and resurrection is a great example of this to us. There are so many examples of God’s strong emotions in the OT. And guess who brought out many of his emotions.

As I close for now, I’m realizing one area of growth for me in this whole valley. It seems to be growing in Christlike-ness in both my ability to trust he is working to turn the horrible into beautiful when I don’t see it, AND to weep, mourn and feel the pain of the brokenness more fully. To lament like Jesus. Because in order to share in his glory, we must also share in his suffering.

God help me. I’m so weak. I need your strength to fall apart. To feel instead of to numb. To be broken so that you may heal. To mourn so that I may be comforted. I know my tears and pain are not the end. But if I don’t enter the pain, I’ll miss the reward. I want your comfort. I want your presence. I want to walk the road you walked. The one strewn with grief and sorrow. It’s worth it. You’re worth it.

The only way is through. I know stuffing my feelings will end up hurting me and others. I know dismissing them, minimizing them, rationalizing them, or platituding them (I just coined that word. You’re welcome) will do the same. The only way is through them. So here I go. Just like how Mom suffered through every day, not knowing when the end date was. Just like how she would have encouraged me to think about what I am feeling and thinking, not to be led by my feelings to but acknowledge them fully, experience them, learn from them and grow through them. Now my blog will be a place where I continue processing this journey and this dark grief and shocking heartbreak.

The first step for me is fighting against the hurtful statements and advice coming my way. I’m caught in a tug-of-war. Expected on my part, after the last 7 months. There are those who help and those who hurt, and all mean well. In order for me to enter my grief, I need to name and fight against the tide that pulls me away from my feelings.

The unhelpful and hurtful statements:

• “At least you got to say goodbye. Some people don’t get to do that.”
• “At least she knew Jesus.”
• “At least her suffering is over.”
• Bible verses texted at a distance.
• “I know just how you feel. My mom/sister/loved one went through ……….”
• “Happy birthday, Melissa.”
• Advice/telling me what I should do.

Helpful and healing actions and words:

• Presence without words.
• Listening without fixing or saying anything beyond “I’m so sorry.”
• Flying into town just to sit with me.
• Acknowledging how deep the grief is. Period. No bow on top.
• Coming to the hospital and being willing to cry and feel pain alongside me.
• Praying for me.
• Avoiding platitudes, words of comfort, and just letting me be where I am.
• Offering help to bear the legal load of executor (I have this support already).
• Reminding me how difficult this road is and that I need to take care of myself. Drink water, sleep, distract yourself at times. Very helpful.
• Instead of wishing me a happy birthday or happy Mother’s day, owning how painful and heavy these days are.

I’m listing these not to condemn anyone, as I know the unhelpful and hurtful statements come from a place of caring and wanting to help. I’m listing these to help me grow. To remind me of what is true and what is false. To identify why the hurtful statements hurt. They often end up robbing me of the privilege and necessary path of grieving and feeling this pain to its full extent. They often minimize, steal, dismiss, rationalize, or platitude away the grief. Mom and I both experienced this before she died, and we talked about it at length. We understood not everyone is in a place where they are able or comfortable to sit with deep pain or wrestling through suffering. I love the people who are giving me these statements, AND I am going to stand up strong against the lies the statements give me, so that I can obey God and grieve well and fully, as he would want me to. So here I go. I’m standing up against the lies these unhelpful statements have given me. I am going to fight to grieve well.

“At least you got to say goodbye. Some people don’t get to do that.” Yes, even though I got to say goodbye to my Mom, it doesn’t make the pain of losing her at such a young age any less painful or horrific.

“At least she knew Jesus.” Even though she is with Jesus, and part of me rejoices with that, right now my tears are my food day and night because of losing her, of her grandkids not getting to know her, of missing seeing her every day and talking with her, listening to her and having her listen to me, enjoying flowers and beautiful things, dancing with her…and I could go on for pages. My heart feels like there is a hole in it that will not go away. I know I will grow around my grief. I know it won’t always hurt so badly. Right now my eyes are swollen, my head aches, and the grief is strong. Let me be here.

“At least her suffering is over.” Yes, her suffering is over. Praise Jesus. Mine is deepening. I watched her suffocate to death. I watched her struggle and suffer over the last 7 months, as cancer took over her body. I’m already physically spent from caring for her, and emotionally tired. Now I have lost her, when I was hoping for at least 20 more years of sharing life with her. On top of which we live in a society that does not allow time to grieve well. I’m her executor, and the legal list of duties is long and the last thing I feel like doing.

Bible verses texted at a distance. I love the Bible. I teach the Bible. I am a firm believer in reading God’s word, memorizing it, living off it. Yet throwing Bible verses at a suffering person feels like throwing a brick at your heart during open heart surgery. From chapter 4 of Someone I Know is Grieving by Ed Welch, he says, “When Scripture is offered without compassion, and with the assurance that you know what the grieving person needs to hear, it hurts.” Later on in the same chapter, he says, “Times of mourning are not when we encourage someone to look on the bright side and give thanks and praise to God. Indeed, Proverbs argues the opposite: ‘Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day’ (Proverbs 25:20). Grief is a time to lament with the sufferer, and the psalms of lament can guide us.” I would post the whole chapter here if I could. Read Ed Welch’s book if you are aware that you need to grow in compassion and humility to walk with suffering, grieving, hurting people.

“I know just how you feel. My mom/sister/loved one went through ……….” You know how you feel about losing your mom/loved one. You don’t know how I feel about losing mine. Saying you do diminishes my experience. You were not with her like I was. You were not in that hospital room with me. Even my brothers and sisters-in-law, who were there and who have the same mother or mother-in-law, have different relationships with her and different stories, and thusly we will have different grief experiences from each other. You are acquainted with the grief of losing a parent, but you are not acquainted with mine. Each of our stories is so different and unique. Don’t pretend they’re the same. Listening to mine without inserting yours would be so much more helpful.

“Happy birthday, Melissa.” My mom died on my 38th birthday. Now I have no idea how on earth to celebrate the day I was born and mark the day she died. You’ve probably gathered by now that I don’t want advice on how to do that, either. And every few years, my birthday falls on Mother’s Day. The triad and complexity of having the day my mom gave birth to me, with the day she died while we held her hand, on the day we celebrate and honor mothers, is beyond me. I did not have a happy birthday. I do not know how to have a happy birthday. I am not having a happy Mother’s Day. Please do not wish me one. As my brother Ryan, said, we were shattered into a million pieces. Period. No secondary comfort this year. Just overwhelming grief. And that is okay with me. There is a time to weep, and now is it.

Advice/telling me what I should do. Advice comes in many forms. Some is true and helpful, some is true and unhelpful, some is out in left field and easiest to dismiss. The advice I’m choosing to dismiss is left field advice and the true and unhelpful. When given from a distance, from someone who is not close to me and has not helped share my grief, it adds a load. It implies I’m doing the wrong thing. It feels like this person cares just enough to yell down into the pit, “There’s a ladder to your left! Just climb up and you’ll be fine!” instead of climbing down into the pit, crying with me, holding me, being with me, binding up my wounds, before gently guiding me to the ladder when I’m ready. Advice from those in the pit with me is so very welcome and exactly what I need.

If you are someone who has unintentionally hurt me through those unhelpful statements, you need to know that I love you. I’m not mad or upset. I’m hurting. I recommend Ed Welch’s book mentioned above as a start, but I warn you: it will take a lot of personal work to actually grow in compassion and humility to walk with someone who is grieving. It’s an easy read; it’s not an easy thing to actually change and do. If you were to see how this is an area where you are in need of growth, however, and you want to change, the effort of doing so would be such an act of love for the suffering people in your life.

I have so many things to say, so many things to process. so many things to feel. Weirdly I didn’t expect this first post after Mom died to be one like this. I don’t understand. But I’m going with it. In the next few weeks, I hope to dive more into chronicling her last few days, sharing who she was, remembering our last 5 months together, good memories, what I am missing in not having her here, or whatever else comes up. If reading it is a blessing to you, I’m grateful. As I’ve said before, I don’t expect anyone to. It’s a personal journey, and you’re welcome on it if you want to come along.

The only way is through.