Remembering well in response to grief

Inevitably life teaches its most salient lessons through hard things, like failure and grief.  Failure highlights better ways and these object lessons often prove pivotal.  With grief, I think it’s different.  Our grief invites us to remember well.

Our family are on a trip to a small town in the upper great southern of Western Australia in honour of a young person who was tragically taken 25 years ago.  My wife, a youth leader at the time, was right next to her when a rock fell and struck the girl (K) who was nearly 16 at the time.  We laid flowers at her grave and remembered her.  We considered how much her dying must have affected her family, how much it must continue to affect them, and how a life cut so tragically short might otherwise have taken shape.  It was a solemn time.

We love honouring those who are no longer here.  For us, to remember K who had her whole life before her is the least we could do.  We love it whenever someone surprises us by remembering Nathanael.  It’s never awkward for us.  It always blesses us.

It has me thinking about the value of remembering well.  To remember well serves at least three objectives.

To remember well honours those we have lost; their memory, their legacy, what they meant to us, and the significance of their lives.  When I’m gone, I don’t want people to studiously avoid talking about me, who I was, etc.  Every life lost is a significant loss.  Every life is and was important.  The more we remember them, the more we exercise our memory and the less we forget.

Remembering well also helps us process our losses.  Avoiding talking about it, however, staves off opportunities to grieve well.  There is a place, I can tell you, for when the pain of grief is gone, and sadness makes way for thankfulness, not least through how our hearts are touched in expressing whatever emotions come up for us.  Don’t be afraid to grieve!  Please don’t.  So many I find delayed their grief process and therefore complicated it.  To honour the truth of how we feel about loss is right, just, and fair.

If you feel safer to do it with others, feel your feelings with others around.  If you can only grieve alone, that’s understandable, so make enough time to honour your loss with tears and whatever other visceral response comes up by yourself.  Everyone has the right to grieve as THEY feel it’s right.

Remembering well heals us.  That’s it.  There’s nothing to be afraid of in remembering well.

Finally, to remember well is to honour the person we lost as if they were still here.  They’re not forgotten.  And if remembering someone we lost causes others aggravation, that’s not our fault.  There should always be space for those who are no longer here.

There is no need to feel guilty for remembering those we lost, just as it’s inappropriate for anyone to make us feel guilty for remembering those we lost.

~

It may seem bizarre to say this, but our grief is our possession.  It’s ours and ours alone, and that which feels painful is actually more beautiful than we could ever realise—if only we’ll go there.  There is nothing to fear in facing our brokenness for our grief.