Dealing With Grief

A great friend of mine wrote this; I just had to share 🙂

“Once upon a time, a son visited his parents who still lived on the farm, which they had for many years. They talked with him how they had survived so far and a lot of people they had known and loved did not. They had lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, other farmer neighbors around them, grandparents, mother, father, relatives, teachers, mentors, and a host of other folks. They had even lost a child, the son’s older sister when she was very young, before the son was born. The son’s father had also lost a sister when she was very young. The son couldn’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child.

The truth is one does not ever get used to people dying and shouldn’t. It tears a hole through you whenever somebody you love dies, no matter the circumstances. One should not ever say that it does “not matter” and be something that just passes. Scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that you have for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life on earth. Scars are proof that one can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and are able to heal and continue to live and continue to love. The scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was! Scars are only ugly to people who can not see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. All you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating.

For a while, all you can do is float and stay alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float.

After awhile, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, an intersection of paths crossed, or even a smell. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there IS life. Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, one finds that the waves are only 80 feet tall, or 50 feet tall. While they still come, they come further apart and you can see them coming. Could be an anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or a milestone. You see them coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. When it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out. 

My thoughts and prayers are that you know that the waves never stop coming, and some how you don’t really want them to. That you learn that you’ll survive them, just as your Heavenly Father survived the suffering, death and Resurrection of His Only Son, Jesus Christ, and the death of His Children, who are Home with Him now. If you are blessed, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves….and lots of shipwrecks. That you trust in our Lord that He will NEVER leave you or forsake in times of grief or any other times. That you know His Joy and Peace, that only He can give, now and forever. In Jesus’ Name. Thy Will be done. Amen. Peace.”