Those parts of your loss you never stop grieving

Image of Nathanael’s hand and mine (2014).

It’s doesn’t happen every day, but it does recur without warning. The subtlest of reminders are all it takes, and a mental note is made. Like every single baby. Most news stories on infant loss. Children of similar age. Ultrasound photos posted on social media. Even the odd story of church brokenness. Those kinds of things.

It’s not that I want to be placed in a bubble away from experiencing these things. Most of the time it’s just a mental note taken. It’s something you realise you just have to get used to. I certainly wouldn’t want friends and family to need to change for my sake.

Indeed, it’s something that very many of us encounter. These are not so much “triggers” in a post-traumatic stress way of things, but they are constant reminders of what we had, cherished, but no longer have.

I have found that, by choice, I can go into the grief that has become part of my life now. I can go in and honour Nathanael’s memory. I can weep my tears, and as I do, I’m met by God. Such a phenomenon doesn’t make the experience easier or more special or anything like that. I’m just aware God is there, that’s all. The more I’m touched in the sadness of a fragment of a memory, the more I feel deeply connected to the God of Nathanael’s creation.

All this sheds light on the matters of grief that don’t go away, that don’t change.

~

Whichever way we look at it, life is tough for those who have endured loss.

But the amazing thing is, we look around, and we find there is suffering everywhere, but many people choose to put it behind them (by functional denial) or they find negative distractions, the worst of which are addictions.

It is hard living in the face of truth. This is not to say that life doesn’t hold joys beyond the ugly truths of loss, for it does. We do tend to move on. And that at times can be the problem—we don’t live in the moment of being present in the grieving space, for we’re often afraid of it. But...

Those parts of our loss that we never stop grieving aren’t there to torment us.

They aren’t there to be run from, nor are they there for us to resent bitterly, even if bitterness is a sign of healing to come.

Those parts of our loss that we
never stop grieving are an invitation.

The only way we can reconcile pain is by facing it. And we can. We may then find that what it takes to face our pain is easier than we thought. Yes, there is a third way.

We don’t have to deny it. We don’t have to resent it. We can make peace with it.

This is the reason why irreconcilable pain is a thing. If God had no purpose for it, God would not allow it.

Go into the pain and cherish it honestly so it overwhelms sensibility unto tears. But don’t do that without the Presence of God there to guide you and to be with you. Our Lord is gentle and beautiful and good, trustworthy as a safe travelling companion on the scariest of roads. Often God also puts other companions who are instruments of divinity on our road with us.