Grief In The United States of 'A-Okay'

 I’ve been thinking a lot about grief... What it is, how it works, how it feels, and how I can get over it a quickly as possible.  (I don’t like feeling uncomfortable!)  I’ve never felt such intense emotions as I have during this journey with Whitney.  I thought that once Whitney was born, perhaps the hardest parts of this journey would be over.  We’d finally have answers to all of the looming unknowns and start learning how to live in our ‘new normal.’  Boy was I wrong.  This journey is far from over.

I’ve never experienced a loss so close to my heart.  I don’t know what is supposed to happen during this next stage of life.  Everyone has told me that people will grieve differently, and that I should just let others grieve in their own time as they need to.  That would be great except for one major problem... If I don’t know how others are grieving, how can I be assured that what I am experiencing is ok or normal?  And furthermore, if we never talk about our grief, how can the journey that brought us to the grief be validated?  

I have to interject here that my husband and our families have been so great through all of this.  They haven’t been afraid to cry with us or tell us when they miss Whitney.  I am so thankful for their openness with us.  It lets us know that she has a place in their hearts, too.  I have a feeling, though, that most people in their grief may not have the support and transparency that we are blessed with.  They’re left to wade through the waters alone, and that’s simply not how it was meant to be.  

A few weeks ago I watched the movie, “Love Happens.”  Its your typical chick-flick love story... Good looking guy who is successful, good looking girl who works in a flower shop (why do they always work in a flower shop?), they meet, fall in love, but something is keeping them apart.  The guy in this case is a self-help guru who's written a book called "A-Okay."  The background to his story is that he lost his wife in a car accident several years ago, and he's written a book about how to overcome the grief.  He goes all over the country, holding seminars to help people overcome loss in their lives.  The only problem is, he really hasn't dealt with his own grief.  We later learn he didn’t even attend his wife’s funeral.  There's a scene in the very beginning of the movie where he is pacing behind a door, obviously sad (and he’d been drinking), but when the announcer enthusiastically finishes his introduction, the main character turns on a 1000-watt smile and bursts through the door, proclaiming “we can all be A-Okay!”

Isn’t that so true of how our culture is today?  We want to sweep our pain (or the pain of others) under the rug, ‘get over it’ quickly... We look to some seminar or self-help book to give us 5 (or 10, or 20) steps of how to move on with our lives.  The majority of literature I’ve read on how to walk through the grieving process has been, as a whole, pretty useless.  Its all about the individual... What you need, what you will experience, what you should do, etc.... Our society has once again individualized what I believe was meant to be experienced as a community.  

Since my parents live in Egypt, our entire family has become fascinated with learning more about the rich (even Biblical) ancient country.  My sister has been reading a book called “A Woman of Egypt.”  Its by Jehan Sadat, the widow of Anwar Sadat (and as such, the former first lady of Egypt).  I haven’t read it yet, but Megan (my sis) was telling Sean of a chapter in the book that details life in the Egyptian villages, and one story in particular that illustrated how the death of a child is mourned by all.  Sadat wrote that when she went to pay condolences to the mother who’s son had been killed in a military accident, she had no difficultly locating her house.  She simply followed the sounds of grief.  When she arrived at the home, at least sixty women were surrounding the mother, all of them crying as if their own sons had died. Each woman recounted memories of this woman’s boy:

“‘I remember him as a little boy.  I can see him now dressed in his military uniform coming to the village in a Jeep just like a prince,” one woman was crying out as I came through the door.  Immediately, all the women burst into wails, some beating their breasts and tearing at their clothes.’

When the crying died down a little, another woman spoke.  ‘I remember sitting at his wedding just five years ago,’ she cried out.  ‘Never had he looked so beautiful dressed in his white galabiyya and a silk shawl.  He looked like an angel.’  And again the women burst into shrieks of pain.

The atmosphere of loss was palpable... For three days the women came to lament with [the mother], from the first rays of dawn until the evening, when they had to go tend to their own families.  The village women did not leave the grieving sister for one minute... By the end of the three days, everyone, including [the mother] was exhausted.  By calling up every measure of grief at the young man’s death, the women had helped to cleanse [the mother’s] pain and to leave behind no hard grief.  Nor did they desert her after the three days.  Her close friends and neighbors stayed with her after that.  And every Thursday afternoon until the fortieth-day ceremony, all the women returned to lament, though more quietly with [the mother] until her grief began to fade.  In Cairo, we treated death much more privately and kept our sorrow to ourselves.  But in the village, everyone shared in everything.”

Can you imagine grieving like that in modern-day America?  We’ve replaced ancient customs of days or weeks-long communal-grieving with a quicker, more-comfortable-for-all funeral service.  We all gather for 20 or 30 minutes to remember the life and death of a loved one.  Some may cry, but for the most part, we stand or sit with our hands folded neatly in our laps, our heads bowed.  Hardly a release of intense emotions caused by a loss.  And hardly a tribute to the incredible affect that lost loved one had on our lives.  Those most affected are left to return to their ‘normal’ lives, only to realize ‘normal’ will never be the same. I wonder how many addictions, depressions and other states of despair originate in grief and the incredible freeing powers that could come from simply being allowed to fully express those emotions.  

Of course, knowing Christ adds a whole other dimension to the grief process.  It is a dimension I am grateful for, but one that is too often used by those outside of the situation to gloss over the pain of loss.  Some want to tell us that we should not grieve, because we know we will see our loved one again in heaven.  We are told there is no reason to be sad because our baby is with Jesus, experiencing no pain or sadness; she is smiling down on us from heaven.  While I try to appreciate the well-wishes and lollipop theology, these statements do very little to anesthetize the pain caused by the gaping hole where our daughter should be.  

Jesus is no stranger to pain.  He is no stranger to loss.  Though simultaneously both God and man, he knew what it was like to grieve the loss of a loved one.  We see Jesus’ grief at the death of Lazarus.  Even though he knew he would raise him from the dead just moments later, the grief of those around him touched Jesus and he wept.  The Bible never says we should not grieve.  The Bible never says we will not feel loss.  As a consequence of sin in this world, there will be death.  BUT the big difference is, we do have HOPE.  Time and time again in the Psalms, we read that “sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  And we are instructed not to grieve like those who have no hope.  I believe with all my heart that our baby is in a better place.  That she is feeling no pain, and as a new creation, she is perfect.  I KNOW that we will see her again.  I rejoice in waiting for that day.  But until that time, there is still a loss in my heart.  A deep grief that just can’t be glossed over with Sunday School phrases.  It doesn’t mean that we have no hope in Christ-- indeed, we do!  That is the only thing that has carried us the past 9 months.  It just means that we are human and part of being human is expressing loss.  

If you stuck this out to the end, I’m impressed... You deserve a cup of coffee!  Or perhaps your coffee went cold while you were reading this!  :-)  Bottom line?  I’m thankful for the hope we have in Christ.  And I am also thankful that he cared for us enough to validate our feelings of loss and grief by his own example while on this earth.  Even in the midst of missing our daughter with every fiber of our being, we can cling to this prayer:

“May the God of HOPE fill you with all JOY and PEACE as you TRUST in Him so that you may OVERFLOW with HOPE by the POWER of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Overflow in me, sweet Jesus... Thank-you for being near me in my grief, for holding me when I cry, and restoring me when I am broken.  Thank-you for the HOPE you give... The hope and promise of a future with you for eternity.  May my life be a testimony to your grace, your loving kindness, and eternal goodness.