Letter to a Grieving Friend

   I am greatly indebted to Larry Barber, director of GriefWorks here in Dallas, for his teachings and current mentoring which have helped shaped my view of grief and how to walk alongside someone who is grieving.  His most recent blog article has informed the following letter in many ways, and I encourage you to check it out.

(this was an actual letter, recently written, but edited for anonymity)

Dear Friend,
     I am so sorry for your loss and for the pain it has brought. I know how much you looked up to this person- what a great example they were for you. Even in your grief you can thank God for them and the way God used them in your life. Most of all with this message, I want to give you permission to grieve, because even well-meaning family and friends will try to take that away from you, without meaning to or intending to, by trying to help comfort you out of it, provide explanations, or help move you toward closure. But know that the grief you feel is simply your love for that person continuing even after he is gone. It is the ultimate expression of love.  You have permission to weep, to mourn, to be angry, to ask questions, to need to be alone sometimes, and to need to be with others at other times. Don't ever feel like you have to have it all together or buck up, put on a brave face, and get back to "normal". You have permission to love this person even after they are gone- and that is called grief, and it is a gift from God.

For those of you have gone through a time of grief, how does this letter resonate with you?  

What "permissions" did you find necessary during your initial time of grief?

As always, your story and your voice are welcome here.

Grief in the Bible: Abraham and Isaac Mourn for Sarah

     One of the main goals of this blog is to piece together a kind of "grief theology." In other words, "what is God doing in times of grief?" Clearly one of the best sources to guide us in this endeavor would be God's Word, specifically sections of Scripture that deal with grief. Sometimes we come across grief in a Bible story, such as the one we will look at today with Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. Other times we will find grief in the context of a proverb, a piece of poetry describing someone who is mourning, or in an epistle, speaking to a specific context about grief or death. If we are going to try and find out what God is doing in grief, our own experiences can give us a lot of perspective, but if we only look to our own feelings then we run the risk of attributing things to God that He has not done,or giving him traits He does not possess. We must tread lightly in the area of saying "God feels this" or "God is doing that." God's Word must always inform our own thoughts and ideas about what God is, or is not, doing in times of grief, and not the other way around. So let's start with one of the first real examples of human grief in Scripture: the loss of Sarah, Abraham's wife and Isaac's mother.

     Genesis 23:1-2 says that Sarah lived 127 years before her death, that she died in Kiriath-arba (Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and then it says that Abraham

     "went in to mourn for her and to weep for her. Then Abraham rose from before his dead..." 

     and later, in a strange interjection in Genesis 24:67, we read that

    "Isaac brought [Rebekah] into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married [her].  So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."

     If we take the text literally, meaning that the writer of Genesis is recording what Abraham and Isaac actually did in response to Sarah's death, and if we assume that he is choosing his Hebrew words carefully to paint a picture as guided by the hand of God, then several things are important to notice here:

1. First, Abraham was purposeful in his mourning and weeping. The text says that he went "for the purpose of" mourning and weeping Sarah's loss.  Abraham is following an important custom in his time- it most likely would have appeared strange for him to not do this. But even while following a custom, he is engaging in something very important. He is setting aside time for the purpose of mourning. He is not ignoring time for grieving, nor is he squeezing it in by himself at the end of a long day of funeral arranging and meeting with friends and relatives while putting on a strong front. He is fully and intentionally present for a time of grief. When people asked for Abraham or wondered where he was, they were met with "He is mourning." One large advantage to a specified time for mourning is that it is expected by you and for you- in other words, no one is put off by your absence during your time of mourning. You don't have to explain yourself or make excuses or put on a "brave face." You are mourning, and you have society's permission and expectation to do so.

The great preacher and minister Tom Long once said that "a society that has forgotten how to honor the bodies of those who have departed is more inclined to neglect, even torture, the bodies of those still living."  Mourning and grieving the death of a loved one is, in every sense of the word, honoring that person.  As I mentioned in my earlier post about the death of my father, I was so wrapped up in myself on the day of his funeral that I missed the many honorable acts that were done to remember him, such as the Sheriff's Honor Guard.  My complete lack of grieving in any real sense after his death was in many ways due to a lack of expectation for me to do so, unlike the society that Abraham lived in; after all, who knows what to tell a thirteen-year old kid who just lost his dad?  My mom, bless her, had no idea, and I harbor absolutely no anger toward her for that whatsoever.  She was working through her own grief also, and I believe her concern for me most likely resulted in less time for her to grieve in a healthy way.  A parent is always a parent first, even before they are a spouse, and so I believe my mother always viewed her primary role as helping me through my grief, and so she put her own grieving on hold.  All in all, I did not make time for grief, and in so many ways this would come back later, because grief refuses to go unacknowledged.

2. Second, the beginning of verse 3 implies that Abraham was mourning and weeping in the presence of Sarah's body. For many of us even picturing this event is a bit uncomfortable for us. Abraham is mourning in the same room as his dead wife? Is that even sanitary? Without going too much into what we know concerning the cultural views about death and the body in the time of Abraham and the patriarchs, it would seem enough to say that Abraham's culture knew the importance of spending time with the body of the person that has died. To do so cements the reality of the loss- this person that we love and have cherished for so long really is gone. We need this firm reminder of the loss in many cases because our minds (and our hearts) are so desperate to fight it, to refuse to acknowledge it on a subconscious level, leading to all kinds of problems and issues later on.

In many funerals today, it seems we are moving away, albeit slowly, from including the deceased in their own funeral!  Even at the time of death, most bodies are quickly shuffled away by professionals to be cared for, and their inclusion in any kind of memorial service, wake, visitation, etc. is optional, left up to whether or not the remaining family members feel it appropriate or think they can handle it.  Now don't get me wrong, I am not in any way downplaying the enormous significance of what those in the funeral industry do.  They fill a gap of great importance in our society, many times filling it even as a kind of lay-clergy for those who mourn and have no church to call home.  And in all honesty the growth of the funeral industry is a free-market response to how our society has decided to deal with death; in other words, we created the modern funeral as a response to our own perceived difficulties in dealing with death.  But this is, again, a discussion for another post at a later time. 

Again, Tom Long reminds us of the theological significance of the body of the deceased being present at the funeral, just as it was for Abraham as he mourned and wept in the presence of Sarah, when he states that our "current shift to a memorial service with the body absent means that Christian death practices are no longer metaphorical expressions of the journey of a saint to be with God." (italics mine)  The funeral, says Long, was originally viewed as the next phase of the Christian saint's journey to be with God; thus, conducting a funeral without the body of the deceased would be like celebrating the send-off a cruise ship that was empty of passengers!  For me, the fact that I never again saw the body of my father after that rest stop meet-up on the bike rally most likely was behind some of the struggles I would later have with grief.  My mother went to view his body at the hospital but I did not.  For whatever reason, in most cases, it is both mentally and spiritually necessary for us to observe the body of our deceased loved one- in a way, this grounds our grief in reality.  When we experience death, many times our minds work feverishly to construct an alternate reality wherein this current pain and loss is non-existent...we call this denial.  Being physically present with the body grounds us in the one reality that matters- the one we are in where we have lost someone close to us.

3.  Third, Isaac finds comfort about his mother's death, seemingly after quite a bit of time has passed, in his taking of Rebekah as his wife.  We don't know much about Sarah and Isaac's relationship; the big story in Isaac's life (at least as far as the Biblical text is concerned) is Isaac's "near miss" at the altar with his father in chapter 22.  But it's probably safe to say Isaac and Sarah were very close- after all, he was the fulfillment of God's ridiculous-sounding promise to Sarah that she would conceive a child in her old age!  He is also her only child, and so their bond was a close one.  This is made all the more apparent when we come to the end of chapter 24 and find out that only now, with his marriage to Rebekah, is Isaac's grief over the loss of his mother assuaged!  There was a hole left in his life with her loss, and he carried it with him all the way until his wedding vows.  It's interesting, too, that the writer of Genesis chose to add this statement about Isaac's comfort, for the reader has surely not given his mourning a second thought.  The story has moved on- so should Isaac!

But we know that grief does not work that way.  The world around us, our friends, our family, co-workers, society- all say "move along!"  But grief anchors us, slows us and weighs us down.  But for Isaac, and for us, God provides comfort in many ways- for Isaac, it was in Rebekah.  Robert Alter, in his commentary on Genesis, points out that "Rebekah fills the emotional gap left by Sarah's death, as the end of the verse indicates, and with the first matriarch deceased, Rebekah also takes up the role of matriarch in the family.  It is exactly right that Isaac should take her into his mother's tent."  The symbolism of Rebekah becoming matriarch and marrying Isaac inside Sarah's tent is not lost on Isaac. This symbolism, as all symbolism does, provides some level of closure for him (although I would say that there is no such thing as true closure), and this void has been, in some ways, filled for him.  The anchor is lifted; the story, and Isaac, can now move on.

So what is God doing here? As we take the story of Abraham's and Isaac's mourning for Sarah and attempt to identify some theological underpinnings, we must be careful not to:

a) assume Abraham's cultural norms (regarding grief and mourning,or any other issue for that matter) automatically receive God's endorsement simply because we are reading about them in the Bible, and

b) read too much into Abraham's (or any other character's) actions when they are presented without Godly comment, i.e. God does not comment on His own views of what Abraham does or does not do regarding the way he handles the loss of his wife, or about Isaac regarding how he handles the loss of his mother.

So, with these cautions in mind, I want to frame "what God is doing" here in terms of what God is providing for Abraham and Isaac in their grief:

A.  First, God provides us time for mourning.  Again, Abraham makes purposeful time to mourn and weep over Sarah's death.  God provides that time for us in the fact that he creates us with an inherent need for mourning.  How we choose to deal with that need is up to us.

B.  Second, God provides us comfort in ways that might surprise us.  For Isaac, comfort came in the form of a wife.  (An as-yet not written future post will detail some of the many ways that my own wife has provided innumerable comfort to me during my journey through grief.)  When we lose someone close to us, everything is thrown up into the air, and when things "settle down" they do not always settle back in their original places; i.e. our lives do not come back together like a game of Tetris.  There are holes and gaps left behind, sometimes becomes something is missing but other times because something has settled back but in the wrong place.  For Isaac, Sarah's absence created a void that was filled by Rebekah.  

For you, reader, how has reflecting upon the grief of Abraham and Isaac influenced you in your own grief?  What similarities and difference do you find?  More importantly...

How has God provided you with time for mourning?  Did you take advantage of it?  If so, how did it help?  If not, what issues came about (or are currently coming about) because of it?

And how has God provided comfort for you?  Has God used anything surprising to comfort you, something you weren't expecting?

And, finally, in your "new normal" after your loss, what pieces of your life are missing, and what pieces have returned but to the wrong place?

As always, your voice and your story are welcome here.  Thanks for reading.

References

Thomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral.  Westminster John Knox Press: 2009.

Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary.  W.W. Norton & Company: 1996.

My Journey through Grief, part 1

While grief is one of the most universal emotions we share as human beings, it is also one of the most personal.  Our grief is our own- it is unique to each of us, precisely because grief is shaped by so much more than just the events that bring it about- it is also shaped by our personality, our family, our upbringing, our relationship to the person that has died, and our faith and values.  In addition to conditioning how each of us grieves a loss, each of these factors also shapes how we view grief itself.

Therefore I feel like a good place to start in this blog is to share my own journey with grief.  By no means do I hold myself up to have some special knowledge or understanding of grief, not do I claim that my experience trumps anyone else's.  But in sharing my own story I hope to invite others of you to share yours, as much or as little as you would like.  Each time I recount my story, there's a tiny element of healing and closure that occurs, but, more importantly, there is a renewed knowledge and understanding that God is using my experience to minister to others.  Each time I tell my story, it's a reminder that there is, in fact, something on the other side of grief, and that grief does not simply end nor does it stretch on and on in the same way, either.  Each time I tell my story, it becomes just a bit more my story, meaning something I claim as my own and not something I am ashamed of.  And when we come to the point where we can claim something as our own, we are in a better position to use it in a productive way to bless others.  So, yet again, here is my journey with grief- here is my story.

In June of 1998, my father, William "Bill" Parks, and I were riding in a bicycle rally.  I was 13, my dad was 41 (I believe), and the temperatures were soaring through the 100's.  We were tackling the 30-miler this year.  At one of the last rest stops before the finish line, I downed a bottle of water and a banana, told my dad I'd see him at the finish line (probably adding an "old man" zinger in there), and took off on my own.  My dad had been riding with someone he met on the ride who turned out to be an EMT.  That would turn out to be important- but not enough.

When I reached the finish line I made my way through the mass of riders, when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.  I turned around to see a police officer, who asked my name and then told me I needed to come with him.  I probably thought I was in trouble, so I followed him to a medical tent, where I learned that my dad had had a heart attack on the ride and had been taken already to the hospital.  They put me and my bike in a police car and went to pick up my mom at our house.  She had already been notified and was a wreck, to say the least.

I don't remember any of the ride to the hospital, except thinking, as if on a broken record in my mind, "He's fine He's fine He's fine He's fine."  I was numb and in a daze.  I don't remember a whole lot of arriving at the hospital either, but I remember the doctor coming in to our private waiting room.  I remember him telling my mom and I, not that my dad had "died"or "passed away" or "didn't make it," but that he had "expired."  Like some meat or milk left out too long.  I don't remember much about that day but his words stand out like a sore thumb.  The callous way in which he broke the news to my mom still hurts and angers me.  I don't believe he did it on purpose, and I know as a doctor he may have had to break the same sad news several times already that week and I do not envy him for that- but his word choice was cold and unfeeling, and it stays with me.

After that point I remember my mom crying, wailing almost.  I remember waiting at the window for my grandparents to arrive at the hospital, watching for their car to pull in.  It would take them nearly an hour to arrive, and I'm pretty sure I stood at the window that entire hour, without moving, just thinking about how much I wanted them to get here, because grandparents make everything better.   They would fix this.  They would make it right and then things wouldn't be bad anymore and we could go home and forget this whole thing. When I would get in trouble as a kid I would lay in bed and wish I was at their house.  This was one of those times.  Part of me remembers, perhaps, a police officer standing behind me, but I didn't really notice him at all.  But at the same time, in the back of my mind, as I stood at that window waiting, I knew that everything had changed.  Everything was different now.  And it was very, very bad.

As I will discuss more in-depth in later posts, I can pretty much describe the next several weeks in one word: hazy.  Both at the time and long after, there was a lot of repression going on, which would come back later to initially cause problems but ultimately bring the healing I needed so badly.  For the sake of time and brevity, here are some "snapshots" of things I remember in the weeks after losing my father that I feel are important for our grief discussion here.

• I honestly only remember actually crying one time in response to losing my dad, and it was while we were still in that waiting room at the hospital.  My closest friend, my best friend really, from church and his family came up (I'm still not sure how they found out so quickly), and when he came and sat next to me I vividly remember "losing it" for a few minutes and crying my eyes out.  I'm not sure exactly what it was about my friend's presence that triggered it- maybe seeing him and knowing he cared for me enough to come and be with me, maybe it was a subconscious realization that I could cry in front of him and he wouldn't judge me, who knows?  But whatever it was, that was where I "let loose" for a bit.  And for many years after that I convinced myself that, at that moment, I "came to grips" with reality, got it together, and "dealt with it" like we are all supposed to do over time, except I was able to do it in a matter of a few minutes.  I convinced myself that I had, in fact, gone through the grieving process like everyone is supposed to, and so I could move on and be fine.  Wrong, wrong, and wrong.  But more on that later.
• I remember all the family and friends that came to our house.  Probably around 100 or so over that next week, but it felt like thousands.  I probably spent about 95% of that time in my room on my computer playing "Shadows of the Empire", my new Star Wars game I had bought just a few weeks earlier.  I was told that lots of people came back to see me, and I can honestly say I don't remember any of it.  Looking back it is painfully obvious how I was choosing to deal with the loss- I put myself in another reality, a video game, where I could zone out and be someone else, somewhere else, and not think about everything else going on.
• At the funeral, I remember being gathered with family in our church's "cry room" (where parents could take crying babies and still observe the worship service), and joking around with my cousins.  Joking around with them made it easy to ignore why we were there and what was really going on, and I was so thankful they were there.  I also remember walking down the aisle with my family to take our seats up front in the church auditorium, and everyone in the audience turning and staring at us, including some of my school teachers.  I felt like everyone was watching me, not anyone else in my family, and that I was in an auditorium of over 800 people (that was the rough count later on, and I am told it was the largest funeral our church ever hosted) who felt sorry for me.  And I absolutely hated it.  I wanted to be anywhere but there. 
• Even worse, because I made everything about me that day, I missed so many elements of that service that honored my dad in amazing ways, ways that I can only see in photographs now, like the Sheriff's Dept. Honor Guard that made a procession into and out of the auditorium in full dress uniform.  (My dad was a bailiff for the county.)  This picture is all I have to remember that by:

• I guess the last snapshot to share is one of being back at school, 8th grade, that fall.  I was sitting at my desk, class was slowly getting underway, and a friend of mine across the room caught my attention and mouthed/whispered (in a way that was even more obvious than if he had just asked me out loud) "Did your dad die?"  I think I nodded yes, but I may have just ignored him altogether.  I don't remember.  But I do remember thinking, at that point, that my final place of solace, school, the one place where maybe I didn't have to deal with the loss of my dad, had been taken from me.  Now there wasn't anywhere I could go where I didn't have to be reminded of how much things had changed.  I was now "one of those kids" who only had one parent, and unlike other kids who entered middle school that way so it wasn't a big deal to anyone else, I became a "one parent kid" right smack in the middle of the summer, so everything was fresh to me and everyone else at school.  

          Some of my analysis here on these thoughts has come as a result of some counseling I went through about two years ago.  But that counseling time provided so much more than that- it helped me deal with what had suddenly become an avalanche of grief, grief so sudden and full that I literally could not control my thoughts or feelings, and I found myself crying and couldn't figure out why.  Needless to say, God used counseling to finally help me grieve in a healthy way.  But again, that is another post for another time. 

    Oh, and the part about the guy my dad was riding with being an EMT?  I found out later that when my dad went down while riding, that man jumped off his own bike and began CPR almost immediately, and he continued it non-stop until paramedics arrived.  I get choked up even writing these words now, mainly because I have yet to be able to meet the man that tried his hardest to save my dad's life.  I want to thank him and hug him and tell him how great he is.  The fact that he began CPR so fast, and yet we still lost my dad, assures me that literally everything that could have been done to save my dad's life was done- there was nothing that could have saved him.  And, strangely, there is a lot comfort in that fact.  It was his time.  But I'd also like to meet this man to find out what he and my dad talked about before he died- this was the last man to have a conversation with my dad during his life.  I wonder what they talked about while they rode together?  I'd like to think that my dad was, once again, being a goofball and making this man laugh hysterically, because that's what my dad was always doing, and it's nice to think that making someone laugh was the last thing my dad did before he left us.  I bet I'm right, too.

     You'll notice this post is titled "part 1."  That's because my grief journey isn't finished yet.  I'll take some time next week to add the rest of my story, but for now, I hope you'll share some of your thoughts and feelings that this post has brought up for you.  

• Where do you find similarities and connections between my story and yours? 
• Where do you see differences?  
• Were there places in your journey where you, like me, look back and regret decisions you made about how to deal with your grief?  
• Do you have a clearer picture now of your journey, looking back?

     As always, your voice and your story are welcome here.  Thanks for reading. 

About this Blog

A blog about grief...sounds pretty depressing, doesn't it?

But a blog about my journey to find out what God is doing in the midst of our grief...now that could be interesting.  I am a graduate student at Harding School Theology pursuing my Master's in Christian Ministry.  I am also a full-time minister for a church in the Dallas area, working with teenagers and their families.  This blog is part of my ministry practicum course for the Fall 2013 semester, and is part of my desire to increase my ministry skills in the formerly uncharted waters of grief counseling.  Each week I will be posting my thoughts, experiences, and ideas regarding what God is up to when we are at our lowest points.

I welcome your comments and feedback to all posts, and I encourage you to let your own experiences with grief inform all of us as readers.

Feel free to contact me at grego [dot] parks [at] gmail [dot] com.