Grief & Loss Part 1

“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”

This life is full of suffering. We all have our crosses to bear & it's no secret for those that know me personally, grief is my cross. I don't know why these things happen, but I know a thing or two about loss & the grief that inevitably follows. It's been weighing on my heart for months now to write about this, but it feels weird. I don't want to sound all “woe is me... my life is full of suffering... feel sorry for me”. At least that's how it sounds in my head, but I just feel like I can't contain this anymore without writing it out. So bare with me.

I also imagine, no wait, I KNOW I'm not the only one grieving the loss of a loved one or loved ones. I lost my mom to breast cancer in 2010. My dad to kidney cancer in 2011. Our first baby we lost at 8 weeks pregnant in 2014. And recently my mother inlaw to ovarian cancer in 2016. Whether you've lost a brother, sister, mom, dad, in law, baby, child, son, your spouse, daughter, niece, nephew, your baby/babies in the womb... it's grief when you lose someone you love. It's all grief & it's always spread over everything in your life afterward. There is this void, this space in your heart that will never be whole again. It's just there & won't go away.

Of course, there is the ideal situation where someone you love dearly, passes in their old age & you both had the time to reconcile if needed, to love each other, to talk, to have that closure & that time with each other. You know they've lived a good life & you're grateful you got to be in it. There's a beautiful mystery in that, knowing they've left this world in total peace. That's the ideal situation. There is of course still grief with that & it's important to go through that process. But I'm mostly talking about a different kind of grief. The kind that many of us have to experience & it's usually the worst kind of situation. Someone passing too young, someone dying suddenly, miscarriage, a tragic accident, cancer, etc. This is the kind of grief I'm mostly referring to here.

It's this constant ache or pain that never really leaves. Like the quote I have at the beginning of this post from CS Lewis' book “A Grief Observed”: “Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” Every milestone your baby reaches, every Christmas, summer, vacation, birthday... it's always missing that person. And feeling that absence stings your soul with just about anything that takes place in your life that has significance. And even on those days, those ordinary days when you're feeling like you just need to call up that person & knowing that you can't do that anymore is equally as painful as those big events in your life.

After hearing about what has transpired in my family's life over the past 6 years, a lot of people say things like “I don't know how you do it, how you still find joy.” I never really know how to respond to that initially, but after thinking about this for sometime, I figured out a couple of things.

1. By God's grace alone is the #1 reason I am the way I am today.
2. My parent's & my mother in law (practically another mother to me) were all “joy personified” people. They lived their humble little lives with the biggest heart for others. People who didn't like my parent's or my mother in law I'm guessing just didn't really know them, because they were joy, charity & love daily. I will only make them proud if I try & follow in their example. If I don't, then what was the point? Joy & love spreads & it starts with me.