Grief Pt. 2
Loneliness
Easter Sunday will mark exactly 200 days since Don stepped into eternity. I am still an infant in learning about grief. Every persons journey will be unique and individual. My hope is to share some words that might encourage a few others in their experience of loss.
I heard someone recently say, “Grief is simply loss, loss, loss.” It is a pretty perfect description of how I feel. Loss multiplied, a wall you run into repeatedly – in every area of life.
The biggest loss for me is simply the man who shared my thoughts and passions. The one who I was in community with. What a great and wonderful thing God had in mind when he made two people become one!
Don and I talked about this as we did pre-marriage or marriage counseling. Our question was; How do you become one? How do you get to know this other precious person so intimately? The answer is of course, though talking and listening! Each partner has to do both. Mutual talking, mutual listening, mutual responding. The other becomes a white board on which we process our life, thoughts, joys, sorrows and decisions. In healthy relationships, we value the other persons opinions and insights. They become a mirror against which who we are is reflected, adjusted and takes definition. Some discussions are deep, and you’re discovering things you didn’t know about yourself.
So much of life is simply a sharing of experiences. Its mundane life about what happened over a cup of coffee with a friend, a trip to the store, a field of flowers you saw, a comment overheard, a thought you had had when driving. They are things (rightly so) others would find boring. Yet your partner hears our awe, disbelief, humor, joys, sadness, insult, etc. and enjoys it all, well at least most of it. In healthy relationships, our story is engaging, because it is being shared by someone you have become one with. Someone you love.
Death or loss steals this precious asset of love. Without it life is itself mundane and boring. One wonders at times if it is worth living.
Now, when I experience life, I come home to a new partner, silence. This happens on so many levels. Silence going to bed at night, driving home from church on a Sunday, taking a drive around the lake.
It is very pronounced when eating. What was always a social occasion now is a backdrop for loss. It’s changed my appetites. I mostly don’t care what I eat when I am by myself. . Cooking no longer interest me. I watch T.V. so the silence isn’t deafening. Now that the days are longer and warmer I can watch the sun set on my porch when I eat. It even better than T.V. it has it’s own language but like T.V., it doesn’t talk back.
For the first 6+ weeks Don was gone, every morning upon waking I would be shocked that Don wasn’t laying next to me. It was a most startling and tormenting moment of overwhelming loneliness. I was fearful it would never go away.
One morning I awoke from a dream in which I was repeatedly, both listening to others and singing with them a worship song. When I awoke I began praying every line of that song aloud.
“Holy Forever”
A thousand generations falling down in worship
to sing the song of ages to the Lamb.
And all who’ve gone before us and all who will believe
Will sing the song of ages to the Lamb.
Your name is the highest,
Your name is the greatest
Your name stands above them all
All thrones and dominions
All powers and positions
Your name stands above them all
And the angels cry, Holy
All creation cries, holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever.
If you’ve been forgiven and if you’ve been redeemed
Sing the song forever to the Lamb
If you walk in freedom and if you bear His name
Sing the song forever to the Lamb
We’ll sing the song forever and amen.
And the angels cry holy
All creation cries holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever.
Your name is the highest
Your name is the greatest
You name stands above them all.
All thrones and dominion
All powers and positions
Your name stands about them all…
From that day on the oppression that I awoke to every morning left. It has never returned. God had delivered me.
Death doesn’t separate us from an eternal song of praise sung to the one who is worthy of exaltation and worship. Whether living or dead, angelic or human, we all sing it together. Our center is God himself not another person.
The battle of loss is ongoing, yet I have found worship an amazing gift to break the power of loneliness that accompanies it’s presence. It gives me perspective.
Recent Comments