The unity of grief

Most people have gone through tough times in their lives.  Be it deaths, broken relationships, illnesses, mistreatment, betrayal...  I feel like grief leaves wounds that never completely close.  Oh, they fade, and through the grace of God any heart can heal, but memories will always linger.

But the up side of grief, if I may speak simplistically, is that because it is so universal, it can be shared.  No two stories are ever going to be the same.  No two griefs will ever perfectly match.  But two wounded hearts can share the pain and the peace that their stories have brought.  (I remember the first time one of my friends lost a brother after I'd lost mine, thinking, "Finally, I can offer words of encouragement so they know they're not alone."  But afterwards I realized--it was just as uncomfortable and sad and distinctly Not As Comforting As I'd Wished as the other times.  Even if it feels like you have all things in common, another soul's grief can never be fully entered into.  So words of hope and encouragement are always beneficial, not just from people who know.)

Remember after 9/11?  People would gather to share their stories, their hurts, and to begin the healing by acknowledging that their pain was not theirs alone.  In its individuality, it was universal.  School shootings and natural disasters are like that too, but often when people endure sorrow on an individual scale, they don't share like they might if others were going through the same experience.  Often we keep individual griefs closed in, as if our pain might inconvenience others.

This is a stock photo because obviously I don't actually take pictures when people are grieving.

I've been thinking about that recently.  A woman I know recently had this to say about her journey through grief.  (I would never just link someone's random post, but she wrote this to be shared, and to be a thread of comfort to others.  Her journey from grief means giving up rights to her story, as it were, if it means someone could be helped by it.)  I would recommend reading it, by the way.  I'm not going to lie--I cried when I read it.  I've never lost a child, but I'm a human, so I reacted to her suffering.
And that's the way it should be.  At work, this sparked a lot of discussions.  We all shared a little about the sad times we've gone through in our lives.  I've worked there for more than a year and this was the first time I'd mentioned my brother to some of them.  Everyone had a little piece of grief to offer, and in every offering, the burden was made just a little lighter to bear.

Of course...  I really haven't gone through as many tough times as some.  All things considered, I've gotten off pretty easy on the grief scale.  But that's my point--people can share grief, even if it's not the same.  Even if I haven't suffered as much as you, it doesn't mean that we can't be a comfort to each other.  And, most particularly if we're both believers, we have so much comfort to give each other.  I remember being much impacted by a story of grief told by a man I knew, who, instead of focusing on his own grief, reminded me that none of our suffering compares to the Lord's suffering.  And it's not just that He suffered, He suffered for our sakes.  So we can stand together, and with certainty that overshadows grief, say that My Redeemer Lives.  It's not like that takes away the earthly pain we experience, but it causes our hearts to focus on the One Who can bear our pain in the toughest moments.  Because sharing pain and grief with others will never compare to the lightness that comes with sharing our burdens with the Lord.

I like to think of it as sentimental

So basically I try to throw things out appropriately.  By that I mean, I like my life to be at least vaguely uncluttered.  I consider it a good week when my waste basket is full of things I used to want to keep, but have now successfully detached myself from and am able to toss without undue sorrow.

 

That being said, I've been working extra this week on de-cluttering my life.  I had some extra time and thought it best to scour my belongings for things I no longer needed.  My walls are still covered in photos and I still have a regrettable assortment of knickknacks (but only if they have some sort of sentimental value to me--I don't just keep stuff around for the fun of it.  Usually), but my closet and drawers are looking much better.

 

But what I have found so amusing this week is that I have tended, throughout the years, to label things surprisingly well.  While looking through a box wherein I had papers I thought were important (all dating at least nine years back, containing notes I'd written to my older brother, a memento I got from a family reunion we had, etc.) I found an envelope carefully labeled as candle wax from the memorial service we went to on the one year anniversary of September 11th.  Ironic, considering that that was just this week, but I don't think that the envelope had seen the light of day for the past nine years.

 

I'm sure I'll end up throwing it out (candle wax?  seriously?) but at the same time, if little twelve-year-old me went through all the trouble of saving the wax, labeling the envelope, and putting it into my memory box, shouldn't Present Day Me be allowed to feel sentimentality both towards the memory of September 11 as well as Shorter Me?

 

I think I have issues.  I should feel free to throw things away.  Ugh.  I wish Shorter Me hadn't labeled it so well.  Then I wouldn't have known what is was, wrinkled up my nose at unidentified candle wax, and thrown it away without regret.

 

Sigh.

Ten years

On September the 11th, 2001 our family was going to go to the zoo.  It was our field trip, and my mom was wrapping up some things on the phone with the airline (wouldn't have dreampt of booking online in those days!) working out some details for our flight to go out to California for Christmas.  Half way through her call, the Southwest operator put her on hold.  And kept her waiting for several minutes.  Eventually the woman came back on the phone, apologized for the delay, and proceeded to book our flights.

My mom called my dad at work to confirm that the flights were booked.  To which he said, "Haven't you heard?  The country is under attack!"  The poor woman at the airline had no doubt gotten the news as it was happening, but without a tv, we were a bit clueless.  We decided to head off to the zoo, I mean, what did two airplanes crashing into New York towers have to do with us?  But we'd gotten about three blocks away from home when, after listening to the radio, we realized that the situation truly was as serious as my dad had made it out to be.  We turned around and called the zoo, to confirm that they were still open.  They weren't.  The whole country shut down that day.  A wounded nation unsteady after such loss.

I remember listening to the radio coverage all day, even though I couldn't follow most of what was going on.  Taking pictures of all the flags that were put up around town.  Going to the memorial held at our University for the families affected by the loss.  Having a special prayer meeting.  Wondering if things would ever be the same.

So basically, what everyone else did on that Tuesday, and the following days and weeks.  And here we are, ten years later.  Who would have thought?

I wasn't personally affected by the tragedy.  Our family knows people who were in the area, but I don't know them well.  And I didn't lose anyone in the attacks.  But I still pray for them sometimes.  In our local cemetary is a monument to one of our locals who died in the Trade Towers that day.  As I pass I pray for his family and wonder how things are going.

This wasn't very deep, but sometimes you just want to acknowledge it.  So today I'm praying extra for those whose lives were changed in ways I can't even fathom.  May they lean on the Everlasting Arms for comfort.

Thomas Stearns would have cried

I don’t know why I keep sharing all this stuff from my journals, since they’re supposed to be top secret, keep out or else, and all that. But apparently I don’t write as much private stuff in my journals as 10-year-olds are wont to do. Plus, I’m still dwelling on them, and blogs are supposed to be about things we’re pondering, so I figured I might as well spring for it.

First, I’m not completely insane, I promise. However, I do sometimes do odd things. For instance, in a journal that I kept about three or so years ago, I decided to do a rather insane thing. My first entry has a portion that goes as follows:

“Well, I’ve finally started my new diary. Just for background information (for 47 years from now, if the Lord doesn’t come, or tribulation saints (hi!) if He does) I’m __ years old. I lead a rather uneventful life and can’t write in straight lines… and absolutely NO handwriting skills. Good luck, oh ye tribulation saints. Go find a Bible or something—way more profitable and way easier to read!

“So, _______ conference comes up soon, and no doubt these pages will be full to the brim of “guess what?” stories. I seem to always collect stories at conferences, like flies to honey, or something. Not that I’m honey, or stories are flies, but it was just the best analogy I could think of. By the way, I can’t spell, not even if my life were hanging on the chance. So, my tribulation saints: beware. And as I said, Bible is always better. But if you do insist, I shall keep writing.

“That gives me an idea. You know how Anne Frank did that annoying “Dear Kitty” thing? Well, for this insufferably long journal, I can do a “Dear Tribulation Saint.” I doubt that’s been done too many times before. And if it has, well, so what. We’re all just excited about the Lord’s coming.”

So apparently I decided to keep a journal dedicated entirely to a random tribulation saint. We often talk in our house about how we hope the trib saints get to our house before the government, because then they can get our many Bibles. Clearly this has influenced me to consider that they might take off with my journals as reading material.

So, I carried forth for several months, starting each journal entry with a “Dear Tribulation Saint,” or, if I were feeling rather blasé, I’d just say “Tribulation Saint:” and carry forth. But one day, I had a rather startling thought.

“Friend,

“I just realized something. What if you’re not a tribulation saint? What if *gasp* you’re an evil dictator who has scoured the homes of known believers for information on meeting places and stuff? AHHH!!!! Get away from my diary!

“Anyhow, if the (hopefully large) chance that you’re a Saint, and/or still reading this, I shall endeavor to tell you about my day.”

Then, one September 11^th, I got pensive about that.

“Before I get too far I just want to say, September 11 already? I know that you, as a tribulated person, have all sorts of crazy stuff in your world, but September 11 was pretty crazy for me.”

I just couldn’t believe that I would even vaguely compare our little problems to Tribulation-sized problems. Clearly I have no sense of fair comparisons.

While going tangenty one day, I made this observation to my friend TS,

“Anyhow, that got a little off-topic from my subject, but that’s OK, because 1) this is a diary and I can say pretty much whatever I want, and b) if you’re really a tribulation saint, then I’m in Heaven and the rules of writing don’t even apply any more.”

I’m not sure why I thought that the rules of writing would cease to apply once I got a Heavenly-type promotion, but maybe my old self knew something it hasn’t bothered to share with the current me.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!

“Oh wait, do you have happy anything days there in the tribulation? That would kind of stink, not having happy anything days. I mean, I guess you have joy in the Lord and all that, but that would just kind of stink.”

Actually, I think the most amusing part of my whole thing was that I eventually shortened my saint’s title from “Tribulation Saint” to “TS.” It took me a little while to realize that T. S. Eliot has such initials, so I started calling my Tribulation Saint TS, Thomas, or just Eliot. And sometimes Thomas. It vaguely weireded me out to realize that writing my journal to a man didn’t seem odd, because I’d been subconsciously writing it to a male the whole time.

Which should be weirder, but when I think of tribulation saints, I mostly think of men, for some reason. Silly, I know, because women and children would be the most likely to grab journals from someone’s room (the men would be in the basement stocking up on pliers and flathead screwdrivers) and so it goes to follow that a woman or childly person would end up with my journal.

But, it’s all foolishness anyhow, because if I manage to remain on earth for very long, I intend to burn most (code word: all) of my journals anyhow. So, Tribulation Saint, don’t bother looking for those journals. Go help your mom raid our pantry. Also in the basement, by the way, so just follow the menfolk, and you’ll do fine.