the gift of grief
If you’ve been reading the last several posts of my blog, you’ll know that ever since the end of May, I’ve been going non-stop. Worrying about and taking care of Michael filled each day with doing a thing or going somewhere or making decisions, only to have me falling into bed each night and getting up the next day for more of the same - wash, rinse, repeat. And even though he’s been gone for two weeks (today) now, my days are just as filled; ways that have more to do with the tasks of moving forward taking a front seat to the pain of loss that I can still see in my rearview mirror.
Having grown up as an only child, I never minded the times when I was by myself; especially as I got older. The benefits always outweighed the deficits because, during those times of aloneness, I didn’t have to do or be for another person. In short, I could do (or not do) whatever I wanted. But today was different, and I’ll tell you why.
When my first husband passed away, our sons were 5 months and 21 months old. I constantly told myself that I couldn’t be a puddle of sadness because I had two babies who needed me to be on my game at all times which, in turn, had me pushing down every feeling of grief, overwhelm, depression, fear, frustration, etc., that came with the territory of being a widow and a (practically) new mother. I never allowed myself to grieve and that caused a lot of trouble for me emotionally and spiritually. It’s a regret that still rears its head on occasion.
Today, I had a long stretch of time during which I had to sit with myself; nothing that had to get done right now, no immediate problems to be solved, nothing to keep me busy. Just me. Just my thoughts. I made the decision right then to give myself the gift of grief. “Annalea,” you may ask, “grief as a gift?” Why…yes. The gift of remembering, of laughing, of misunderstandings, of touching, of hurting, of adventure, of barely having two nickels to rub together, of walking our neighborhood with triple G&T’s in big Starbucks cups and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes while shuffling through our yacht rock playlist, of saying, “I do until death,” of having a child, of almost ending it, of healing, of growing, of grieving. I want to give myself time. I want to let my heart and mind and soul feel Michael. I don’t want to shut down my emotions for fear of being overwhelmed by them, nor do I want to confront them. Instead, I want to approach them all with curiosity and reflection; marinate in them until my fingers get pruney and I have to step away to rehydrate.
And let me just tell you that looking at any kind of emotion – mine or someone else’s – in this way is a totally new, dare I say radical, thing for me. Never in a million years would I have even thought I could do something like that; SO not my wheelhouse. For decades, I’ve done my level best to avoid every kind of emotional discomfort that made its way to my door: pleasing, evading, redirecting; each its own rug that I’ve repeatedly swept under and, in so doing, caused more damage to myself than any situation or conversation I was hiding from ever could have. It was all based on fear and fear makes us do the dumbest things of which I’m super guilty of.
Alright. Enough of the heavy. Here’s the hope for us all that’s found in Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” My true identity is in who God says I am; not in my circumstances, not the awful things that happened to me when I was little, not my shortcomings or my failures or my sin. My position as a believer that I received by grace through faith can never be taken away and when Jesus died on the cross, He took my condemnation – even that which I stack upon myself - upon Himself. Willingly!!! It’s difficult to fully comprehend the hugeness of what that means, and yet it doesn’t diminish even the smallest part of the mercy that I’m given every moment that I draw breath. Thanks be to God!
