I'm Grieving

My friend said to me the other day, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just can’t pull myself out of this hole”.   I told her it was a combination of things, depression which she has had before, and grief.

Grief is a very unique emotion.   God grieved, so we know that it is Biblical.   For humans there is usually a regret factor in grief.   I don’t know if that existed for God.  Specialists have a “grief cycle” that includes many emotions starting with shock and denial and then ending with acceptance.    But it is a cycle which means it continues over and over again.  You could be at “anger” and then go back to “shock and denial”  you could be at “acceptance” and go back to “bargaining”. 

Grief starts with loss.    You may not even know what you have lost.  In our case, it is the loss of a friend.  But just her death isn’t the complete loss, there are several attributes of her death that are different losses.   There’s the loss of the person, then the loss of the potential for that person, then the previous expectations for that person, then the hope for that person, then the others around you that feel loss. 

Jeff didn’t just lose his friend, he lost the hope that she would beat cancer.   He lost the hope that his stressed working situation without her was temporary.  He lost the confidence to sleep in in the morning because she was the early bird.  We lost the closeness we would have with her family as they drift apart.  We lost a perceived future with her.

Loss doesn’t just come with death.  Loss comes with birth and everything in between.   I had a career that I lost when I became pregnant with Ethan.   I had to grieve the loss that what I thought I would accomplish by a certain age would never be.   I lost the hope that I would be able to have more children.    My friend is grieving a loss for her  daughter who was ready to embark on a new career, and then oops, got pregnant, is not married, and still lives at home.  My friend, being wise has lost the idea that anything with her daughter will be simple again – because as you know, having kids ruins your life – haha!

Disappointment, loss, grief, they all go hand in hand.   I grieved when Jarrod went to college.  But he stayed home!  But his whole life is different now.    What he truly wanted has come to pass, but things will never be the same again.  Those are real losses.  And sometimes we have to grieve them.

Change is inevitable.   Our bodies are made to roll with it baby, but our brains sometimes get stuck.  Often older people can not grasp change easily.  Sometimes it is because some say they are “set in their ways,” or “too old to change.”  I wonder sometimes if they have endured so much change that they just can’t endure any more.

After 45 years in the same house, my in-laws moved.  We are so blessed that they moved 2 miles up the road.   In their mid-70’s they changed everything.  Where they banked, went to the post office, the grocery store, the pharmacy, the routes they took to the freeway, to church … they just moved across town, but everything changed.   I asked my sister-in-law if it was strange when she came “home” that it wasn’t her home.  She said it was something that she had to become accustomed to, but that it was easy.  She didn’t feel loss, but I wonder if my brother-in-law did.  He was born in that other house.

We all perceive loss in different ways.  We grieve in different ways.  Tonight I am grieving for many things.    This year is almost over.  In the last year we have moved, I sold tons of furniture and gave away what felt like everything,  bought a new car, put Jarrod in a University, sent a roommate home, gained a new roommate, and silliest of all, Ethan can grow a full beard – what does that have to do with loss?  His face will never feel nor look the same.

I’m not going to take you through the grief cycle.  I am just going to leave you with this – especially if you suffer from depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc…. Do you have something you need to recognize as a loss or disappointment and grieve it?   Sometimes the depression, anxiety and insomnia are just symptoms of a greater situation – you need to recognize what you are feeling, and grieve it. 

I went to Bible Gateway and searched “grief”.  There were so many good Scriptures that I couldn’t pick just one, but if I had to synopsize them, God is the help in time of trouble, our rock in time of grief.

K