You are the only one in this with me. You are the steady presence in front of me. Behind. And before me. I can’t see one step ahead, and I can’t see you. It’s dark. It hurts. It always hurts. Even behind my smile, my heart is bleeding. How much blood do I have left to lose? Shouldn’t I have run out by now? Why prolong the pain? What’s the point of all this? Why go on?

So many questions, so few answers. But your steady presence next to me is undeniable. I know you are here. I don’t feel you like I felt you before. I don’t see you like I saw you before. Everything has changed. My life is still chaos. Still trying to learn that I’m not in crisis. Don’t need to worry to fall asleep that I need to save her life. That old fear of her dying on my watch is done. It’s realized. She did die. She did choke. Everything I didn’t want to have happen, happened.

And you were there. You held my hand when I couldn’t stand. You opened my eyes to horrors. You sent me help from every quarter. You never left. And you allowed it. I just don’t understand you. I don’t understand any of it. We’ve talked about this before. You welcome my questions. You answer me, though you don’t give me what I want. You give me what I need. It’s what I tell my kids, but it’s harder on the receiving end. I still need faith, because your ways are beyond me. I can’t grasp them. How can you grieve deeply while working it all for good? That’s not something I can do.

Will joy ever return? Will I ever be able to sing again? To play music again? Will tears continue to be my food until you wipe them away? It’s a long time to wait. To wait for you, to wait for Mom. To wait for the others you have taken and will take before me. Is this what you meant when you said to take up your cross? Tears and groans, aches and pains, sorrow always my companion?

It’s nothing you don’t know. You know this all. More intimately than I ever will. You know abandonment. You know loss. You know death. You know injustice. You know it all. Even if I never understand, I am learning that if I have you, I have what I need. Clinging to you is like skydiving. It’s not safe. You could allow another nightmare at any point. Nothing is safe anymore. But you will never leave me alone. You will cry with me. You will walk with me. You will be with me. You will love me. You will bring me into your kingdom. And I will never want for anything else if I have you. Even if you slay me. Even if you take my husband, my kids, my friends, my house, my health, my sanity. I will trust you. Because I have nothing better. I have no one better. All I have is you. And you are enough.

It’s been three months, a year, or ten. Some say I should be over this, past it. Done. What do I say when they seek to stop the river running down my face?

Don’t stop my tears.

It may be the millionth time I’ve cried; I’ve lost count. Someone else is counting for me. Someone who invites them. They don’t threaten Him, or remind Him of their worst fear. He has no bubble to burst. His heart has broken to the fullest extent. And in His breaking, the world overturned. Death was dealt its death blow. Irony of ironies. How can healing come through breaking? Beauty from ashes? Diamonds from pressure? Gold from fire? How can life come from death?

I could go on.

Flowers and plants. Forest fires. Seasons. We see the cycle of life from death everywhere. It’s all around us. Yet we close our eyes. Shy away from the painful. Try to make a world where pain is pushed to the sidelines, not a main actor in our hearts. We want nothing to do with it.

But we cannot pretend forever. It’s coming. When death knocks at your door, stares you in the face, interrupts your comfortable life with its cold presence, you realize you cannot hide anymore. You cannot run. It touches the one you love, and if that weren’t enough, it says, “I’ll be back.”

Who will be next? How can one live with this presence?

I don’t know yet, but I know one thing. Don’t stop my tears.

With death of one you love comes pain. Horrible, wrenching pain. It’s overwhelming at first. Then the waves die down a bit. Things feel like they are settling. The pain may be less acute, but it is also ever present. It’s never going away. Evidence that my world was shaken. Scars. Bullet holes in my heart. I may heal, but I will never be the same. You lose a leg, and your new one doesn’t replace it. What you had is gone. It’s never coming back. And because of this, I cry. I cry for what was lost. I cry for what will never be. I cry for what I could not change. I cry for her pain. So many reasons. Sometimes I have no idea why.

Don’t stop my tears.

Why do I keep saying that? I’m a mother. When my children were babies, their cries told me something was wrong. It told me they needed something. I learned so quickly to listen to their cries and learn what they needed. Was it sleep? Food? Touch? Cleaning? Warmth? Medicine? Isn’t it our job to stop the tears?

Maybe. Sometimes. Tears show us that something is wrong. They are only one of many signs of wrongness. There are others. Since tears come easily for me, I also receive many attempts to stop my tears. “She’s not suffering anymore.” “The hardest part is over.” “You did your best.” “She’s with Jesus now.” “It’s okay.” I get distance, weird looks, plain avoidance. People who are uncomfortable with these levels of pain. Or just lots of words. Trying to put meaning to it. Trying to comfort. I see the attempt to help, and it touches me. But it also hurts me. Please don’t stop my tears.

How does it hurt?

It hurts because the appropriate response to death is sorrow. It hurts because it’s not okay. It hurts me because those words try to snatch me out of a place God has put me. It hurts me because it’s distance: trying to smooth over my pain instead of entering it. I don’t need answers or purpose or lifting from my pain. Remember? Life comes from death? Healing from brokenness? You can’t fix it for me. No one can but One. My healing is through the tears. It’s feeling the pain. And I need others to help me feel it.

Don’t stop my tears. Stopping my tears stops my healing. I need to cry. It’s remembering the moments. It’s going back to the flower gardens for the first time when Mom isn’t with me, and crying through it, remembering. It’s cheering on the Packers, tears flowing, with her empty chair next to me. It’s swimming with sea turtles, weeping as I remember the first time I saw a turtle was with her, and the last time I was snorkeling was with her. It’s tap dancing in her shoes, crying because she isn’t wearing them and tapping next to me.

The best way you can help bring comfort is to let me cry. Be with me. Ask about my mom. Give me chances to feel, to cry, to remember, to show you pictures, share one more piece of her jewelry with you. Give me chances for the pain to come out. To laugh one moment and weep the next. Be willing to listen. You can cry or not cry. I don’t care. Just be with me.

I need so many people. One person can’t do this all. My husband can’t do it all. One or two friends can’t do it all. I need my family to come around me and help me. One moment at a time. I need you.

Don’t stop my tears. There is healing in them. Jesus meets me there. It is only in the depths that I begin to know true comfort, deep praise, and find hope. Thank you to my two dear friends for sitting with me today and making space for my tears. It helped me so much.

I’ve been told multiple times in grief that praying the Psalms helps. They give words to every human experience. Did you know that over 1/3 of the Psalms are laments? I didn’t. I must admit, I didn’t know what “praying the Psalms” would look like. It sounded too Christian-ese, too much the “right thing to do”. Sometimes I have a problem trying to be so original, so unique, so unlike others that I don’t want to do what someone tells me to do. It’s a trait of those with my Enneagram number: The Four. We believe we are different from anyone else. However, one of the things Fours need to remember is that every human being is also unique, and we are just as human as the next person.

This week I decided to open up Psalms. I had already started writing a song based on some laments in Scripture, since there seems to be an abundant amount of songs of praise but not nearly enough songs of lament in our church culture. Psalm 77 and Psalm 6 is where I landed. And two minutes in, I was sobbing and incredibly thankful for these honest, brave, real, strong lamenters.

Two and a half months in, the pain is real and the struggle is real. I’ve been single parenting for the last ten days while my husband is out of the country. With lots of help, of course. What this has given me, among other things, is time alone at night. The days have been full, even though we’ve scaled things down to match my reduced capacity. I’ve found moments of laughter, breaks in the ache of grief. Then every night, without fail, as soon as the kids were in bed and I was alone, the tears started flowing. It was as if my companion (we’ll call her Grief) was waiting for me to be alone, tiptoed up to me and said gently, “It’s my turn now.” Every night I hoped she would not call, but she has. She still walks with me every day. I suppose that is growth in me, that I am no longer resisting her presence, even though I’m not throwing her a welcome party. She has things to do in my life, and I know I need her. Yet the continual ache and ongoing pain, sometimes so sharp all I can do is sob, feels like more than I can bear. As C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, I need a drug for the pain. I suppose this is where addictions begin: to sugar, alcohol, drugs, TV social media, porn, relationships, sex, you name it. Anything to help the pain, anything for some relief.

It’s tempting to reach for those things. Very tempting. So as I’m reading the Psalms from this perspective of the amputation of my mom from my life, I found fellow sufferers in these pages. I found confirmation, yet again, that these feelings of anguish and experiences of them are not sinful or signs of weak faith, but human responses. Here are some examples.

“My soul refuses to be comforted” (Psalm 77:2).

This is so true. While I have moments of comfort, nothing actually brings lasting comfort. Nothing “works”. Temporary comforts come in many forms, but the pain comes back without fail. I live with a heart that feels like it bleeds out continuously. So unless I am willing to dive into an addiction of a good thing in order to keep numbing myself (which is always tempting, but which I am also not willing to do), I must agree with this Psalmist and say along with him, “My soul refuses to be comforted.”

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled” (Psalm 6:2).

My flesh is literally weak. I stared death in the face, watched it take away my youthful, active mom, and was reminded of how fleeting health and life is. On top of that, my body is weak. If I don’t take a walk a day, I feel panicky and the stress weighs much too heavily to bear. I cannot keep up with my text messages like I used to. I need more sleep. The brain fog continues. It took me five days to recover from one church picnic last Sunday afternoon. My kids are learning their new mom can’t do what she used to. Energy is low. My immune system is suppressed, and I’m in contact with my doctors to deal with health issues that have come up. When I spoke with another bereaved caregiver recently, she reminded me that it took her months for her body to realize that there wasn’t something urgent or pressing to do. I immediately related. I lived that way for six months, and I still live with this sense of urgency, of crisis, even though nothing in my life is currently on fire. My flesh is weak. So I join the psalmist in crying out to God with my troubled bones.

“I am weary with my moaning, every night I flood my bed with tears” (Psalm 6:6).

Yep. That’s me, too. The last ten days, Grief tended to wait until the kids were in bed and I was alone. She’s not always that considerate. The bathroom stall at the zoo, Sunday mornings in church service, on my walks, taking out the garbage, in a conversation, smelling a rose, hugging my child. These are all moments & places when I’ve felt the tug of grief, saying, “It’s time to mourn again”. So I cry. The tears flow. Tasks can keep the pain at bay for awhile, but they cannot remove the pain. There is nothing else to do sometimes but weep. And yes, it is wearying.

As these Psalms have helped me grieve this loss, know that I am not alone, crazy or sinful for feeling this way, they have also brought comfort. When I read Psalm 6:8-9, a new kind of tears came. These were tears of being heard, of being known, of being in someone’s heart and presence in a way where you know they are with you, they are feeling it with you, they are holding you together while you fall apart, they are strong while you are weak, yet unafraid to break with you.

“Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord accepts my prayer.”

The Lord has heard me. That made all the difference to me. You know that experience when you’re a child, and you KNOW you are right about something, but you need your authority figure to agree to make it official? You need a witness? You need confirmation? This is my confirmation from God my Father. He has heard every instance of weeping. He was in the zoo bathroom stall with me while I fell apart. He tunes in to every ache. He’s there. He is listening, he is with me, and he is answering. I don’t know a greater comfort in the pain than this. My true comfort is coming when my King shows up on a white horse to finish what he started. I know the aching continues until then. And so does his presence with me through every moment. This is a sure footing that helps me more than sex, food, relationships, another TV show, reading……you name it.

I am a humbled Four who learned that I need the Psalms just like everyone else. Thank you, God.

I read somewhere that sorrow and suffering are good teachers. They are not the electives we tend to choose, but at some point or another, we are all enrolled in their classes. Eccesiastes 7:4 says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” More evidence that sorrow and suffering bring more with them than pain. While listening to more of C.S. Lewis’ “A Grief Observed,” he quoted Matthew 5:4, where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Like Lewis, I can hear Matthew 5:4 and remember acquiescing to its truth, or even teaching it, before I was plunged into the pool of grief myself. It didn’t hit me then like it hits me now. I certainly read Ecclesiastes before, but I didn’t take it to heart and seek to be in a house of mourning. What is the point of that? I preferred mirth, laughter, and ease.

My childhood was not an easy one for many reasons. Nor has my adult life been easy. It’s very much a mixed bag; joyful and beautiful alongside painful and ugly. Yet as I look back from my current vantage point, I see those twin teachers present. And while I certainly took a few plunges into the shallow end of the pool, I have spent much time and energy running the opposite direction. Ditching class. Believing I know better. Trying to control exactly how much pain I should feel, if pain is unavoidable and I have to feel it.

Mom’s cancer diagnosis, suffering, and finally her death put me in the deep end. Sorrow and suffering didn’t stop to ask me if now was a good time. It just happened. It just was. And now it is, and it isn’t going away. Thanks to a dear friend, and a book called “Beyond the Darkness” by Clarissa Moll, I am now coming to see that the grief I am feeling is one of my new lifelong companions. It’s not an injury I will recover from. It does not have a shelf life. It will not eventually leave. It will morph and change, as I do, of course, but it is with me for life. It’s my new companion. I cannot yet call it my friend, but perhaps I will eventually get there.

You see, I don’t like my new companion. I don’t like her at all. She’s demanding. She takes most of my energy. She cries a lot. At the most inconvenient times. She doesn’t play by our society’s rules. She does not have a regular schedule. She can keep me up at night or make me fall asleep in the middle of the day. She’s taken away my appetite at times, yet she’ll also make me crave unhealthy foods. She changes my relationships, because other people see she’s next to me, and they react accordingly. She’s intrusive, ever present, and someone I never would have invited into my life. I don’t like her at all.

And.

And I’m learning she is a gift. She has a lot to offer. I don’t even know a quarter of it, I’m sure, and I already see this. Because as soon as I stopped running from her and started listening, I heard wisdom. I felt pain, too, searing pain of the chasm separating Mom from me. Strangely enough, I started seeing that pain as a gift in itself. It’s love for Mom that causes me to feel this grief. It’s one side of the double-edged sword of suffering: the side of Genesis 1-2 and the end of Revelation, the side which screams out that life is not supposed to be this way, and it will not always be this way. It’s the aching for Jesus to make it right again, for all eternity. It’s a holy ache, because it’s one that Jesus knows intimately. It’s God’s heart, too. I understand now that sharing in Christ’s sufferings includes holding grief’s hand when it enters your life, as it has entered mine.

So what wisdom have I heard? I’m glad I asked. My brain is still a sieve these days. I still have trouble completing sentences. I am very forgetful now, and need continual reminders of things I used to be able to mentally hold. This is one of the reasons I write. I write to remember. I write to process, and I also write to learn. I often read my writings back, and learn from them.

One thing I have learned is what the writer of Isaiah meant when he said Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). Clarissa Moll pointed out that it could also be translated that Jesus was a “familiar friend” with grief. Hmm. Familiar friend. They were close. This means I am in good company, as I stop running away with distractions, take a breath, and begin a true acquaintance with grief. I’m learning that welcoming grief instead of running from her is walking in Jesus’ footsteps. It’s an joining in God’s lament against sin and longing for full restoration. It’s the ache that things aren’t as they should be.

I’ve learned how illiterate I am in lament. The churches I have been part of never taught or modeled how to handle grief, or how Jesus did. Funny how we can talk so much about some things but have blinders on in others. Mine were stripped from me this last year. Once in the pool of grief, it didn’t take long to see how the church shies away from following in Jesus’ footsteps in this regard. We see his sufferings as necessary, dwell on them for Good Friday services, perhaps, or when we talk about sin, but do not follow him to the extent of calling grief our familiar friend. We sing positive songs, pray for positive outcomes, and have little to no vocabulary to lament and grieve. One of the ways we need to grow in Jesus’ likeness. However, God has given me fellow lamenters in my current church, who have been a lifeline in this hurricane.

Other lessons I am learning is what truly matters and what doesn’t. Death brings life into focus, sharply and succinctly. I see how unimportant and insignificant things are, things that used to grab my attention. For example: caring what other people think of me, or my fear of trying new things. I’m rethinking how I parent our children, seeing more gaps in what I believe vs. what I actually do. Instead of wanting to be entertained in my free time, I have a burning desire to be useful. To create instead of consume. Life is so fleeting, so short, a drop in a very large bucket. I want to make my drop count. Whether I like grief or not, she is changing me in ways I’ve asked for. I just didn’t want the lessons to come through her.

You see, I have a confession to make. I studied suffering and God’s reasons for it pretty regularly in my 20s and 30s. It was a disturbing thing to try and hold: if God loves me, why does he allow _________? I read books, underlined verses that mentioned suffering and purpose, listened to sermons. I wanted to know the answer to the all-famous question: WHY??

Thanks to grief, I realize now what was going on in my heart. I figured if I could understand even some of the answer of why, if I studied enough about suffering, then when the big storms of life hit, I would be able to meet them with calm and composure. I would be able to say when my loved one dies, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” I wanted to be like Job, just without the sackcloth and chapters of lament. I didn’t want to feel as if the bottom was dropping out of life. I didn’t want to be rocked to my core with pain. I thought that would show that I did indeed have a strong faith in God.

How wrong I was. I didn’t understand how much strength and faith it takes to 1. feel your pain to the capacity you are able, and 2. to cry out to God honestly with your anger, questions, doubts and terrible pain. The mark of a strong faith during times of difficulty is lament, not stoicism or emotionless acceptance. God keeps leading me to feel my pain, not avoid it. And when I do, it is there where he meets me, helps me and grows me in ways I could never have experienced had I continued to rely on myself or tried to numb the pain away. Trust in him is revealed through hardship. As I have learned, if you do not trust him, you will not cry out to him.

Yes, grief is my new steady companion, whether I like her or not. Though she’s not my favorite, I do like what she’s doing in me. And I am not alone. There is another steady companion with me, who knows grief well and will walk with me until there is no more pain. His words in Matthew 5:4 hit home this week. I’m blessed because I mourn. While I am incapacitated by my grief to sing, teach or lead in the ways I have in the past, God does not see me as useless or wasteful. No, indeed. I am blessed. Comfort is coming, and it will be all the sweeter for those who are strong enough to break. I am sharing in Jesus’ sufferings. God help me.

Another day. Today I took another load home from Mom’s apartment. Relatively non-emotional things, like household cleaner and a garbage can. Finding a home for each new thing in our house often proves too much for me, however, and the bags line our hallway until I or someone else in our family has the energy to put things away.

It’s chaotic. It’s different. Those who said me moving back home now that Mom has died would be a returning to normal couldn’t have been farther from reality. It’s not normal. Nothing is normal. Our old life is in the past, and things have changed. We’re still caught in the ripple effects of Mom’s death, like a pebble being churned up by the incoming waves of the ocean over and over and over. None of us have settled. Every rhythm we had is gone, and life is too unpredictable to create many new rhythms yet.

It breaks my heart that I cannot be who I want to be. Last night, my daughter was perky and bright-eyed, eager to talk to me about what was going on in her world. I, however, was spent. Grief sucks the energy from you better than a full family of four children. I had lost all capacity to listen or be present with her, and I had to look her in the eye and say, “Honey, I’m so sorry, I want to listen to you, but I can’t. I don’t have anything left. I need some down time where I’m not doing anything.” And she nodded, didn’t appear to be hurt, and went downstairs. My spirit wanted to listen to her, and my flesh was weak and couldn’t. I’m more limited than I was before Mom was sick. My sweet kids run into these limits every day, and it breaks my heart afresh each time I can’t be the mom I want to be.

I don’t know how to answer, “How are you?”. There are no good responses that are both honest and respectful to the unwitting person who just stepped on the landmine of my broken heart, or the well-intentioned individual who doesn’t know what to do with a grieving person. It’s a terrible place to be put, actually. I don’t want to be asked how I am, and I do. I don’t want to be around people, and I do. Another example of not knowing which end is up. Like C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, if only I could be around people and have them not talk to me. I dread being alone, as the feelings soar in to be my constant companion, yet I don’t have the energy to engage in conversation. Sometimes I can barely finish a sentence, and often the words get jumbled. Part of the brain fog of grief.

The weight of grief is real. It sucks the life out of you. I rarely have the energy to move. I do things because I know they are good for me, but even then, I have limits. Yet if people look at me from the outside, I seem fine. If only grief could be observed outwardly. If I wore a cast and limped, people would obviously understand my limits and I wouldn’t be faced with explaining why I can’t do such-and-such a thing, or refraining from explaining, and living with that weight of not being understood. If they could look inside me, they would see the carnage and perhaps leave me be. My body feels like it’s betrayed my mind. They are interconnected, yet out of sync with each other. Not to mention my soul. I can’t tell which end is up.

At times I am enjoying my beautiful family. Then while I’m doing so, out of the blue with no warning comes a feeling of complete disconnect from them. They are laughing at something beautiful or funny, and in that onrush of disconnect, I feel as if I cannot relate to them at all. My heart is reminded that it is broken, and that life is dangerous. Life hurts, and these beautiful moments can turn to ugly and painful ones at the drop of a hat. No warning, no asking you for permission. At times, if I dwell on it, the fact that beautiful can turn to ugly on a dime scares me deeply. I shrink from living, and yet I don’t want to shrink. I know it’s better to love than not to love, but the other side of love is loss and terrible pain. No one can love without also experiencing the loss of someone you love deeply. And part of me still wants to avoid that type of wrenching. Of separation.

I never really related with Christians who said the worst part of Jesus’ time on the cross (and beforehand as well) was his separation from his father. The bloody torture and slow suffocation seemed worse to me. Then all of a sudden, driving home from another tap class today, when Mom wasn’t there, and I couldn’t talk with her in the parking lot like we usually would, it hit me. This separation from Mom because of her death is the most painful thing I have experienced in my life thus far. It hurts more than I ever believed possible. There are days I don’t feel like I can go on, and days I don’t want to. Death isn’t natural. Death isn’t God’s good design. Death is ripping, searing pain. It’s separating you from someone you love, and this side of heaven, there is no cure. There is no removal of that sting. It’s very much present. And anyone who has not yet had a loved one ripped from their lives does not understand this yet. But they will.

I digress. As I realized this separation from Mom hurts so much because I love her, I also realized that Jesus knows how I feel. Experientially. He lost his father. He was separated from God. He knows not just the separation of a child from a parent, but the ripping, searing pain of losing God. He cried out in the midst of it, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from Psalm 22. He knows. That does not make my pain any less. That does not make this grief ease. That does not make me smile and say, like so many Christians seem to think I need to say, “It’s all right. God is good.” It frees me to cry out in my anguish to God, too. It frees me to grieve. It brings my heart awe that I am not alone. That Jesus would be willing to suffer a greater pain than I’ll ever know.

I can’t fathom things being more painful than they are now, except when I consider losing my husband or kids. Now I live in the understanding that such a dreaded event could actually happen. The blinders that I deserve a long marriage, that I deserve to watch my kids grow up, that I should be able to see grandchildren, that I am somehow “due” these things just because I am alive, are gone. That’s all been stripped away. No where did God promise any of those things. No where did he say I am due these things. I have fooled myself in believing that I do. I have listened to other voices besides his. I am not promised a horror-free life. I am promised a painful one. With Jesus with me through all of it. Each valley, each mountaintop. At least I never have to lose God’s presence. It is a remarkable thing that we know his presence most closely in the darkest of times.

It’s scary to be this honest. I feel like I’m going crazy, and if I were to share, that others would confirm my loss of sanity. Listening to C.S. Lewis today helped me realize that this is not insanity, but deep grief. And when we put words to it, it helps others know they are not alone. Today I felt a deep connection to someone who died when my mom was three years old. We have never met, yet his honesty through his journey of losing his wife to cancer has already deeply helped me. Go figure. I wonder if either of us would trade the lessons learned and the help given for our loved one back. I don’t know. One of the many questions without answers that have been coming to mind.

I’m writing this post with tears in my eyes. It’s 8 weeks this Thursday since Mom died. Life is still a whirlwind of grief, emotions, shock, pain, numbness, peace, laughter and agony. There is no normal for me or my family as of yet. So many things to do, so many things to feel, so many limitations. I’ll save “how I am” for a separate post, but to speak quickly to it, I am exhausted, hurting and grieving.

The focus for me after Mom’s funeral has been 1. to get on top her financial situation as her executor, and 2. empty out her apartment by the middle of July, when her lease is up. I knew I could have put all her belongings in storage and put it off, but I preferred to attack it now and get it done, with much help from some amazing friends. Thankfully, it’s almost done. There’s a whole other post in the “how I am” about what it’s been like to do such a horrible job at such a horrible time. For now, this time in her apartment, with her things, her smell, her journals, everything she left behind, has forced me to continue grieving. I understand why people put this task off after a loved one’s death, sometimes for years. It’s indescribably hard.

As I’ve been going through this the last 6 weeks, I’ve also been able to attend church again. I have not been attending since Mom’s surgery, save for a couple weeks when I had respite from caregiving. Both my husband and I were very involved in serving at our church, but since Mom got sick, we stepped out of our roles in order to care for her and our family. Ever since I have come back to Sunday mornings, things are different. I am different. I am no longer playing piano, teaching, leading a class, or serving in any capacity. I am just there. It’s quite a shift for me. And every Sunday, without fail so far, Sunday mornings are by far the time I cry the most during the week. While I have lots of memories of Mom in that building, it’s not just her memories that bring the tears. It’s being in the presence of God with other people who know and love him, too. It stirs my heart in a very different way than my times with God at home. Outward evidence, perhaps, of the fact that Christians are saved into a family. We were not meant to be alone. Thank you to my Jesus family for the hugs, the prayers, the tears cried with me, the ways you have loved me and helped carry me.

This uncontrollable crying on Sundays has made me very uncomfortable. I often feel like the only one who’s using up 6 tissues each week. Being told to stand and greet each other just adds to the awkwardness, as I don’t mind being honest about why I’m a blubbering mess, but there is no good way to be present with someone in a grieving state in one minute or less. We are told to come as we are, however, and I am coming as I am. Broken-hearted. I am not bringing my gifts to the church. I’m bringing my grief and sorrow.

While I know that’s okay, and it’s exactly what God wants me to do, it’s not normal for our church culture. I am very aware of standing out, and not just because I’m outwardly crying. Hurting people who prefer to privately grieve, or express it in different ways than copious tears, are also present on Sundays. And it begs the question:

What do we do with our grief as the church?

Maybe it’s not the pain losing a loved one. It could be disappointment over a lost opportunity, life not going the way it should have gone, unwanted singleness, the wayward child, chronic pain. Fill in the blank. At some point, all of us have tasted the twisted nature of life. Things are not as they should be, and when that happens, it hurts. What do we do when it hurts?

I am not the one to write a book on this subject. I’m busy reading them, because I was never taught well what to do with my grief. Thanks to friends who have been walking through this longer than I have, I am reading and using resources like Dark Waters, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller, A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card, and a four-part series on loss of a loved one by Kenneth C. Haugk. I’m looking to join a Grief Share group in the fall to pursue it further. But I ask this question about what we do with our grief as the church because right now, we don’t know how to deal with it well.

Christian radio teaches me to always be positive. Quote those Bible verses, find the silver lining in your situation, sing minor key lyrics in a major key (one of my biggest pet peeves as a musician), and just remember how good God is! Even when your daughter has died, or your mom has incurable cancer, keep up the positive outlook. Since we know the end of the story, and everything will be okay, there’s no room for your grief.

Church teaches me that grief is a place of limbo. There really is no landing place for a person in grief. As a leader, I am welcome back when I am functional. When I can serve again. The implied messages are: “You’re welcome to come, but you can’t really do anything useful for us until you can teach a class again, or serve on the worship team, or teach in kids’ ministry. Let us know when you’re done grieving.” It’s as if we don’t know what to do with deeply hurting people. Give them space. Where is their space? I say this, fully acknowledging that I have believed this and done this, in my ignorance and to my great sorrow.

Yet God is showing me through my walk with sorrow, that broken-hearted people are vital for the church. In fact, in my friend’s (and I will always think of him as my pastor), Buzz’s sermon on Psalm 13 last week, one of the things I realized is that me coming with only my grief is exactly what God has for me to do. That’s my service. That’s my contribution in this season. Why, you may ask? How does me coming with sorrow and tears serve or help anyone?

It images God.

Yes, that’s right. Our sorrow at the brokenness, twisted nature of creation, at death and decay and despair, reflects to the world who God is. It’s the reflection no one wants to show, but everyone desperately needs. Since we all experience this brokenness, we all need to know what on earth to do with it. More than that, we also need to know that God grieves the ruptured state of his creation. In particular does he grieve the lost and shattered state of his people, his image bearers.

Need proof, perhaps? You don’t have to read far in the Bible to see and hear God’s laments. I’ve mentioned John 11 in a previous post, when we see Jesus lamenting the death of his friend, Lazarus. But if we turn back to the Old Testament, it is everywhere. God regrets making man in Genesis. God grieves over his lost people in Exodus. God’s anger and sadness is visible as his people continually turn away from him in Judges. He grieves over Saul’s turning away in 1 Samuel. The prophets are full of his laments. Jesus himself laments over Jerusalem, echoing God’s heart through the years. God has strong emotions, probably stronger than any of us have ever felt. He is sovereign, and he grieves, as a father who hates watching his beloved child choose death over life. It breaks his heart (to borrow our vernacular).

God doesn’t respond to the horrors of sin and death with positivity. I believe it’s impossible for us to fully grasp this, but it’s essential to at least try to understand how he can be fully sovereign over every particle of his creation, using evil to accomplish his purpose, redeem and rescue (and one day restore) all of his creation through Jesus, AND fully grieve over the death of a sparrow. Often we try to understand him, and since his ways are unsearchable (Romans 11), when we reach a conundrum, we put him in a human box. I’ll use Christian radio as an example again. When we get that diagnosis no one wants, when that sweet child dies, when sin’s effect rears its ugly head, Christian radio tells us that all things work together for good. Or the DJ tells us that he/she has peace about the situation. They quote Bible verses all day long, but they are not verses of lament or sorrow. They are positively spun, Romans 8:28 style, misapplied to the grieving situation. I have yet to hear a K-Love verse of the day about lament, sorrow, or anger. No, God responds to the pain in his people and his creation with passionate emotion.

It’s not only Christian radio. I’ve heard that message from other Christian quarters. We are ill-equipped to handle grief in a God-honoring way. We are ill-educated on how God handles grief of his broken creation. And because of that, when you are thrust into grief or disappointment, you lack tools and a robust theology of God and suffering that help you actually turn to him. You have no place for your questions and doubts, your anger and fear, your anguish and numbness. You wonder if something is wrong with you, if you are not trusting God enough. You hear the positive worship songs and wonder where the songs of lament are. While the Psalms express their doubts, anger, fear, and questions directly to God, we don’t. And that’s deeply damaging to all of us.

We need grieving people in our church. We need to learn from them. We need them to show us what God is like in their grief. We need them to be weak, to question, to doubt, to be angry, to have great sorrow. Because we are, or have been, or will be that grieving person. And we have a God who is deeply acquainted with our grief. He shares it with us. He knows. He grieves, too. When we learn to lament, to bring those feelings and questions and cries to him, it’s the bridge that brings us to him. Without it, we set grieving people floundering. They have no way to reconcile the pain they experience with a God who either seems not to care or couldn’t do anything to stop it. They see him as powerful, but not emotive, or emotive, but not powerful, instead of the truth that God is all-powerful and knows our suffering intimately, and cares deeply enough to suffer himself. They need to know by experience that he draws near to them in their pain. No wonder so many hurting people leave the church. I understand it now. I wish I understood it before.

If you’re not the one currently grieving, you are needed, too. Not just in the ways you are gifted to serve, but with your presence. Along with the one who grieves, you image God when you learn to come alongside the broken-hearted. If he is the one who is near to them, your nearness to the broken-hearted is God’s presence to them.

Obviously not all of the Christian life is sung in a minor key. There are beautiful truths of God’s character in which we rejoice. There are astounding promises in which we trust. There is abundant hope to which we look forward. AND. And there are deep sorrows in which we lament. Imaging God also happens in the deepest valleys, not just the mountaintops.

So my service at present is coming broken. Living in sorrow and with my tears. Not only does my broken heart image God, my lament helps bring me toward him. I cannot thank those of you enough who have drawn near to me in my pain and been God’s presence to me. You help me feel safe when I fall apart on Sunday mornings. You help me draw close to God. Thank you.

It’s time to do the harder writing. The processing and grieving and remembering of my mother, Laurie. I’m realizing it will take much time. Perhaps years. Perhaps I will never be done. One day at a time.

The night before her surgery to remove cancer, we had a conversation. She wasn’t speaking by this point, and so it’s a conversation written down on notebook paper. Hindsight I’m really grateful for that, because now I can look at her words and remember. She told me she always wanted a daughter, and was thrilled when she found out I was a girl. Having me in the spring, near her birthday and right before Mother’s Day made it even more special. She would take me on walks through the neighborhood, putting lilacs in my baby carriage. Almost 38 years later, I would take her on wheelchair walks through her neighborhood and pick flowers to give to her. We met in person in a hospital on May 9, 1986, when she gave birth to me. 38 years later, also in a hospital, on May 9, 2024, we said goodbye for now, when she took her last breath. 

I got to live with her for the last 5 months of her life. I hadn’t lived with her since I was a child, and this time, though it was incredibly hard in many ways, was also a huge blessing, and one I am so grateful for. I don’t regret one minute of it, even though my family and I needed to live apart for three of those months. Living with her gave me a window into her heart and life as an adult that I’ve never had before. Often we would have late night conversations with her ridiculous voice to text app. She went with a free one and we got what we paid for! One particularly funny moment was when auto-correct changed the name of her radiation oncologist, someone she didn’t immediately bond with, to Dr. Sunshine. The conversations would range from light to heavy, Enneagram types to the meaning of life. By the way, she was a Two. We bonded over many of the difficulties of the cancer season, though we each had a very different side of the same coin. It was very two-sided, as she would often ask me questions and listen so well, as she was known for doing. 

I saw how brave, strong, fierce, resilient, vulnerable, emotional, broken, and beautiful my mom was those last 5 months. Something I hadn’t seen as a child. She certainly wasn’t perfect. In fact, if she were here, I would guarantee you that she would be uncomfortable with all the praises and assure us that she had faults. She wasn’t afraid to admit the ways she had screwed up, or messed up. In fact, she often could see the broken parts of herself easier than she could the beautiful ones. That humility to be able to admit her weaknesses and failings, to apologize for when she hurt me or someone else, the desire to learn and grow, is one of the things I am most grateful for about her, and one of the things I got to thank her for before she died. I hope she understood how valuable her humility was. She was the one I could be completely honest with, and know I wouldn’t be judged. She would listen, she wouldn’t try to solve a problem or put a bow on a painful situation. She would be there for you when you were ready, and be there with you no matter where you were. One time, as I was sobbing on her lap post-surgery, is when I felt she was most present with me. She just held my hand, and said, “I see you. I see your pain.”

My mom took bullet after bullet in this cancer journey pursuing health and life. I saw her suffer and endure more than I’ve ever seen another human being go through. Even in my cancer caregiver support group, hearing the stories of other loved one’s cancer journeys, while they are all difficult and horrendous in their own way, Mom’s was particularly challenging with the nature of her surgery, the trach, the loss of speech, and the PEG tube. Many other patients had faculties that Mom had lost. We would watch other cancer patients come in for treatment, and Mom would note how many people are dealing with cancer. I would note how many of them could walk in and out, talk to their Drs, eat a meal on their own, etc. Mom was walking to and from treatment for awhile, but in April she lost the energy to do so, and was never able to talk and eat on her own. It was a rough road. Yet I never heard her complain. She would grieve, she would question, she would share how she missed food, and how lonely it was sometimes to have no voice. That’s where our evening conversations were so valuable. Even though it wasn’t something audible, she had a voice, and she still does. Her writings gave many people windows into her heart and life, and we were told multiple times how much people appreciated hearing her perspective.

We knew it was hard. We knew this could go either way. We knew the doctors could only do so much. They gave her odds, but also acknowledged they couldn’t predict how this would go. Each patient is different. They could see patients who looked terrible who would make it, and patients who looked great but then died. We knew we couldn’t figure out the end of the story, but simply walk each day out and find whatever God had planned. Mom knew and acknowledged she could die from this. She was never afraid of it. Often, due to the suffering she was going through, she wished for death. She told me once she had done much in her life, eaten so many varieties of food, raised her kids, lived her life, that she wasn’t sure what else she had to give. Perhaps you, like me, can think of millions of reasons we and the world needed her. She wasn’t so convinced. Again, it was easier for her to see her faults than her strengths. Then the next day I would find her making plans for buying a house, planning to counsel in cancer care support groups, looking at tickets for another concert, finding something else beautiful. Though death looked attractive in ways, she never sought it or gave up on life. She pondered the meaning of her life deeply, and bore the suffering of the last 7 months with incredible strength.

So many things remind me of her. Every time she saw a flower, she would stick her nose in it to inhale any scent it might have. As my sister-in-law says, she had a great taste for “smelly” things. A nose like a bloodhound. Our kids know “Grandma’s smell” because of her perfume or her wall scents. She loved things to match. I remember when I would need to help her dress, that she would insist that everything she wear match, even down to the color scrunchie I would put in her hair. I somehow did not get that gene from her. Which is probably why she’s bought me jewelry, purses, and other accessories I simply wouldn’t buy for myself. She loved beauty, and you could see that as soon as you walked into her home. You may think a dish was just a dish to eat off, but to Mom, it was a piece of artwork to visually enjoy as well. She decorated not only for Christmas, but every season, and would take videos of anything she enjoyed to replay those moments again when she was back home. We would watch BeeGees and Beatles documentaries. Mom seemed fascinated by human stories and biographies. The last one I watched with her was a biography of Bob Ross. Whenever we watched a movie, she would wonder what the actors’ real lives were like and often google them. I remember I introduced her to the TV show Friends in the last 5 months, and she was so saddened when she found out Matthew Perry had passed. Apparently Chandler was her favorite. 

As a child, she was my safe place. She was steady, present, self-sacrificing, giving what she had to her children. I could always count on her. She fostered my love of words and reading. As I was going through her apartment, I found my library card from Rochester, MN public library. She saved it. Something I used so often that the image is burned in my brain. One of my favorite memories as a young child was when I got my toy kitchen. I felt so proud, cooking my little meal in the family room when Mom was cooking her meal 20 feet away from me in the kitchen. Even at that point, I wanted to be like her. She was my teacher, my example. Whenever I wanted to bake something, she would encourage me to. I’m sure I made a mess, as children do in the kitchen, but I don’t remember her saying no. I remember her telling me to go ahead and try. 

Sometimes we clashed. I didn’t understand parts of her. She would be willing to try things, sometimes to a fault, and I was more cautious and a rule-follower. While I love beautiful things, I am a minimalist, and my mom seemed never to be satisfied with a little. I saw inconsistencies and didn’t know what to do with them. It was hard to grow up, as I felt my mom wanting to hold onto me longer than I needed. Yet this is also something she recognized later on, and when I brought it up to her as an adult, she owned it and apologized. In her last 6 months, she saw the excess in her life and was eager to simplify, making plans but never having the opportunity to do so. Again, she set the example for how to parent: not perfectly, but humbly. 

I will never be able to say enough about my mom, and what a precious person she is. I only offer one perspective on the woman who was Laurie, and I know each of you who knew her have a piece of who she was. There is no replacing her. Every day I will miss her love for others, empathy, compassion, fire for life, humility, snarky faces, love for beauty, hugs, a listening ear, her beautiful hair, cheering on the Packers together, goofy voices reading to our kids. I never got to take her back to Hawaii like we were planning. I never got to take her to a Lambeau football game. We never got to take another tap class together. We never made it to the tulip festival this year. There were so many things I wanted to talk with her about as a grown woman. She won’t get to see her grandkids grow up. She won’t come to our house to decorate Christmas cookies and have a nerf gun fight. I can’t send her flowers and see that look on her face when she smells something so good. I can’t text her pictures of my kids or the next beautiful thing I saw. I can’t walk with her, hold her hand, ask how she is doing. She died so young, and none of us were ready to say goodbye. There was so much more life to share together. 

As the pain many of us feel is so deep, Mom would be the first person to acknowledge it and sit with us in it. She wouldn’t rob us of that precious time we need to grieve. She wouldn’t encourage us to put a smile on because she’s no longer suffering. She would sit with us, hold our hand, let us cry, and tell us, “I see you. I see your pain.” She knew not everyone could sit in the uncomfortable space of pain without trying to put a positive spin on it. But she could, and if she were here, she would want to do that with each of you. So here I am, encouraging us to lean into our grief. In honor of Laurie. It’s okay that we’re hurting. Sit with that. Mom knew the way out was through, and she bravely faced all the feelings and all the darkness that came her way. Yes, her suffering is done. Praise God. I believe with all my heart she is with her dear Jesus, the one who is acquainted with our grief. That’s wonderful. However, we’re not there. We’re still suffering. It’s okay that it hurts right now. I hope and pray we can walk through our pain so bravely like Mom did, and someday to see and experience the light she knows now. 

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.