Naming Grief

I sat impotently by his side, observing a beloved life fading away. Sunrise and sunset marked his last day of life upon the earth as slowly he left this world and our life together. As his spirit gradually departed the life of his physical body, I accompanied him on his final journey as far as I was allowed to go.

Twilight came and retreated as night encroached on our last hours together, each breath more labored than the last, heaving, and at last gasping. I tried bravely not to cry in his presence during the long vigil at his bedside as I sat there and watched him slowly die. My thoughts were random and escapist. My mind searched frantically for life even as I knew that soon he would be dead. I held his hand and talked to him. I rested my head on his arm, yearning for physical connection, somehow still believing that he would revive.

The sense of his spirit ebbing away was the dark backdrop of those last hours, his suffering and pain near their earthly end. Resignation and anticipation were the contradictions of my watch as I waited helplessly for the impending moment of death. The great empty space that would be my life without him at its center was beyond human imagination.

The truth is that it is absolutely impossible to comprehend or process the death of another person before the fact, however dire the circumstance. Hope persisted that the nightmare of his illness would yet end in earthly victory. Irrationally I expected him to rise up and say, "Come on, Jules, let's go home." I had no concept of what death would be like when it came, or how it would feel to experience the last breath of another beloved human being in a single moment of utter finality. In some inexplicable way, I expected to participate—not as a helpless bystander to his dying, but in the mystery of his actual death.

His entire body gave a great start around 12:30 a.m., as though to wake me from exhausted half-sleep, "sleeping through sheer grief" (Luke 22:45 JBP). With extraordinary physical strength he gripped my arm, his beautiful blue eyes feverish and suddenly wide open. What did he see to rouse his spirit from the coma of death to half-consciousness? Who was there? What did he hear? Why did it exclude me? The words from the hymn "To God Be the Glory" resonated: "our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see." Was this his experience of transport, his "going on toward perfection"? There was an intimation of eternity and of our spiritual immortality in that incomprehensible moment of silence so powerful it touched the very edge that separates mere mortals from life beyond death.

He held onto my arm as long as he could. I had so longed to see his beautiful blue eyes one more time. I did. When he closed them for a last time, his grip released. When the moment passed, I knew that his spirit had departed. I sat and watched as his beautiful body, devoid of spirit, lived on for two more hours, slowly, painfully, inevitably giving up the last of his physical being, breath by wordless breath. I could not believe that his life was almost over. It was only a moment ago that our life together was safe and ordered, every moment a joy.

He died at 2:40 a.m. It was the dark night of my soul. He left without me. He left without saying goodbye. "But now that he is dead, ... can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Samuel 12:23 NIV).

I was directed to an impersonal room where I waited, cold and in shock, for someone to complete the death certificate formalities. This ungrateful task was relegated to a rookie chaplain who was, at best, unpracticed in spiritual matters of dying and death. I heard myself saying words to encourage him in his fledgling pastoral care ministry. At my request, he walked me to the car.

Awkwardly he muttered a few words of superficial comfort. I brushed them aside, as though they were not intended for me. I was awash in disbelief that death had come, a death that was cruel, untimely, and unreasonable. I left that hateful place for a last time. I left without my husband. I was alone.

Driving toward home along the now familiar route, the car seemed to find its own direction. As I merged into freeway traffic with others speeding along at 3:15 a.m., my rage and anger found conscious expression. I cried aloud somewhere into the universe, "Doesn't the world know that my husband just died? Can't it stop for even ten seconds to mark the passing of a great man from this life?" Through my tears and exhaustion, I thought about how I was now among the cars on the freeway going somewhere, part of the anonymous, red-orange blur of pulsing motion I had observed from the window of my dying husband's hospital room ...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
"Funeral Blues," W. H. Auden (1907-1973)

And so began my journey through grief. My story is not the same as your story. For each of us, grief is unique and personal. Yet we all share a common experience; we all know the painful reality of grief because we have lost someone we love. In this chapter, you will explore the nature of grief and the experience of grief.

What Is Grief?

"Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy." John 16:22 NIV

The death of one you love is like the death of a part of yourself. Grief is the outpouring of emotion and pain that expresses how you feel because of what has happened in your life:

• Grief is shock at the suddenness with which life's plans have been changed.

• Grief is anger at the untimeliness of death.

• Grief is sadness.

• Grief is the pain of starting to speak to someone who is no longer there.

• Grief is going to bed without saying goodnight to one you love.

• Grief is an empty chair at the kitchen table.

• Grief is wandering around a too large house with painful memories.

• Grief is emptiness.

• Grief is loneliness.

• Grief is adjustment.

• Grief is reorganizing to go on with life.

• Grief is wishing that things were as they used to be and knowing that they never will be again.

• Grief is contemplation as you meditate on the finality of your own earthly life.

You grieve because of a loss you would never desire:

• You did not plan for your loved one to die.

• You could not control death—the when, where, how, or why.

• You are powerless to change what has happened.

Though universal in its fundamental attributes, grief is individual and personal. Just as everyone has a different story, so also everyone grieves differently. I do not grieve in the same way that you grieve, and you do not grieve in the same way that another grieves. The idea that it is possible to take charge of your grief belies the very nature of pain and heartache. No amount of resolve or discipline can determine the course of grief. In Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare wrote, "Every one can master a grief but he that has it." The head cannot lead; it must follow the heart.

A beloved person dies, departing your physical, earthly life together. Harold Kushner wrote, "When you have loved somebody, they have entered so intimately into the fabric of your soul that neither death nor time can ever take them out. They are always with you." At first, you deny grief, mercifully shrouded by shock, fatigue, and numbness. In the emotionally arduous hours and days that follow, you function, still stunned by the bitter reality of death.

You experience rites and rituals with vague detachment from a surreal moment in time and space. When the last guest has left, you are alone. Grief assaults you like a tsunami. You may be engulfed by uncontrollable weeping—perhaps many times each day. When it descends upon you, grief is raw and gut wrenching—a state of soulless heartache with painful physical symptoms that mirror your emotional devastation.

Grief has a life of its own. It is a restless shadow in the soul, for a while insistent and unavoidable. The dimensions of grief shift from day to day as you contend with the reality of life without your dearly beloved. How you incorporate grief into your life is the challenge of each new day.

Your life is shaped by how you deal with the unalterable circumstance of death. Grief never leaves you where it finds you. It leaves you disillusioned or more profound. It leaves you fearful or more confident in the faithfulness of God, depending on how intently you listen to what grief has to say.

In the Christian faith, grief is sometimes framed in self-denial. Many grieving Christians feel guilty for crying or being sad; their rationale is that a person of strong faith should feel happy to know that his or her loved one is in heaven. But grief is not a crisis of faith; it is a crisis of the heart. As a person of faith, you can believe beyond doubt that the one departed is with God, but you are human. You are in pain. You hurt. This does not mean that you are a bad Christian or that your faith is weak. Rather, grieving is really a show of faith. You trust God to hold you at your most vulnerable, when your life is in pieces, and your strength is gone. "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27 NIV).

God is with you as you grieve. God shares your tears and sadness; God feels your pain and sorrow. God is with you as you struggle in your brokenness. God promises that grief and pain will not last forever, that you will be restored and made whole again.

In the remaining pages of this chapter, you will name the emotions and feelings of grief. Some may be uncharacteristic or unfamiliar to you. Framing what you experience in the context of grief will help you to understand better your emotional, physical, and spiritual reaction to loss. Be assured that you are not alone in your response to death and that grief does not last a lifetime.

Anger

"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14:27 KJV

When you grieve, anger is a common emotional reflex to your separation from the one you loved and lost to death. Yet anger is socially toxic. It is an emotion we all are expected to repress, ignore, and resolve, especially when we grieve. Seen as an inability to control negative emotions, anger is construed as a sign of weakness. Because society has little tolerance for the weak, you may feel pressure to conform to a life absent of anger. Yet when you deny or repress your anger, you may experience very real physical and emotional symptoms that mirror your grief and add to your pain of loss. You must acknowledge your anger, recognize it as a by-product of your grief, and work toward its positive resolution.

When you grieve, you are not prepared for the full frontal assault on your heart that occurs when anger shows up unannounced. It may surprise you with its force and power. Anger thrives and consumes vital energy if you provide a place in your heart for it to take root and grow. Eighteenth-century English poet Alexander Pope wrote, "To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves." Instead of nurturing your anger, you must respond to it in appropriate ways.

A first and important step in responding to your anger is to identify the reasons you are angry. You may be angry because:

• Your loved one died.

• You feel abandoned.

• You feel alone.

• You feel the pressure of new responsibilities.

The target of your anger may be:

• your loved one

• other family members

• doctors or medical personnel

• well-intentioned friends

• yourself

• God

It is hard work to sort through the emotions that engulf you after death, as you simultaneously reconcile yourself to loss. As you confront anger, you realize that it is not wrong to experience it as long as you understand its cause and manage it constructively. When anger occupies your thoughts, it easily instructs your guilt and regrets.

For the survivor, grief encourages revisionist thinking in response to feelings of guilt and failure. Earthly life ends when death occurs, with no ensuing bad acts. The mind of the survivor filters selectively, minimizing shortcomings, idealizing the good, enabling sanctification of the one who has died. After Leighton's death, I remembered, memorialized, and cherished while struggling to make sense of that which could not be explained. I struggled to answer questions that would never be resolved and to reframe the bad to conform to the overwhelming good. Leighton once spoke these wise words in a sermon: "What God expects of us is trust, a loyalty that does not demand full understanding and a love that dares to trust God even when it cannot fully comprehend where our pain and misery and sorrow are leading us."

Most survivors have some regret or guilt, whether imagined or real. We know the futility of that which "might have been"—our guilt and regret about the "could, would, and should" of grief. Your own regrets might be about words that should not have been said or words simply left unsaid:

• You might have talked more about the disease.

• You might have had a moment-of-truth conversation.

• You might have confessed your fear of death.

• Your loved one might have expressed more concern for your future.

• You might have said a real good-bye.

• You might have given or received forgiveness.

• You might have given or received a last kiss.

• You might have expressed your love more often.

• You might have spent more time together.

• You might not have had that last argument or disagreement.

As you begin to identify unresolved issues of guilt and regret, the space in your heart for the emotional legacy of the one who is gone will be cleansed and again made whole.

You can resolve your anger slowly as gradually you abandon it, giving your anger latitude and allowing it to abate over time. Or, there may be a time when you consciously let go of your anger, reaching a turning point in grief when you are unwilling to spend more of your precious mental resources on the nonproductive emotion of anger. In either case, you resolve your anger when you forgive. Naming your anger will help you to discern who or what it is you need to forgive.

In his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner observes that even the most devoted caregiver may experience that moment when fear and fatigue assume the guise of impatience and anger as exhaustion gives way to exasperation. When you forgive yourself that you could not save your loved one from death, you commend your experience to the perspective of the past, enlarged to include your own humanness. As well, you forgive others their failures with you. When you forgive, you quiet trouble in your heart. You receive peace.

Fear

"Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." Isaiah 41:10 NRSV

In his book A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wrote, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." In grief, likely you greet fear every day; for some it seems like every minute of every day. Fear is a normal part of the experience of grief.

Fear is "a feeling of agitation and anxiety; a feeling of disquiet or apprehension." Grief magnifies your human capacity for fear. When someone close to you dies, what you most fear becomes reality. Feelings of agitation, anxiety, and apprehension reflect the fear of grief. Though fear is a common response to death, it need not permanently define life.

Eighteenth-century philosopher, orator, and politician Edmund Burke wrote, "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." Fear ambushes you when you are unprepared and least able to defend yourself. When you grieve, fear threatens to paralyze you. Fear has the power to make you feel incompetent and hopeless. Your confidence becomes self-doubt; your certainty becomes second-guessing.