Altered: A Perspective on Grieving

"What is grief, if not love persevering?"

~The Vision, WandaVision

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope." ~1 Thess. 4:13

Some people who read that verse may read it as an exhortation to believers that we shouldn't grieve when our loved ones pass away knowing the Lord, because we have the hope that we'll see them again. But, I'm not "some people." I've always understood this verse to be one of freedom for the grieving believer, which is in line with God's character and His heart toward us-He desires that we live in freedom. I've always seen this verse as an encouragement that it is okay for believers to grieve loss, but an admonishment to grieve in a different way-or, more aptly, from a different perspective- since we have the hope that reminds us that we'll see our loved ones again.

For those who don't know, my Mom graduated from earth to the express Presence of God on December 4, 2020. What I hope to do here is to just share some of what my own grieving process is teaching me. If you are grieving, perhaps you can relate and hopefully this will bring you the comfort of knowing you're not alone. If you know someone who's grieving, hopefully this will be a helpful window to give you some understanding about what they're going through. Finally, let me be clear in stating, up front, that I DO NOT speak for ALL grieving people because what I've known and now understand from an experiential standpoint is that everyone grieves differently and that's okay.

1. Grief isn't considerate: Grief does not care about your busy schedule nor your desire to only think happy thoughts. Grief doesn't set a reservation and then send you a calendar invite to show up next Thursday at 4:13pm, and not a moment sooner. Grief doesn't block out a nice, clean 90 minutes in your schedule and adhere to a hard stop at minute number 90. Grief is messy and unpredictable. It's the clueless family member who stays showing up at your door unannounced, eating all your food (think about it, emotional eating anyone?) and overstaying their welcome EVERY TIME. Grief doesn't care about the assignment you need to turn in tonight, the work report that's due tomorrow, nor any other deadline that you set without its permission. Grief is NOT considerate.

My Response: I am learning that I need to be okay to feel what I feel when grief shows up. I know we live in a hustle and grind culture, but trying to push away the grief in order to stay focused on my grind is NOT a healthy way to grieve, nor is it wise. When we don't let our grief out, it goes somewhere. Just because we've shoved it down doesn't mean it is gone. It's there in the deep and undoubtedly will make its way to the surface one way or another. And normally, when it surfaces, it comes up like a Great White... devouring whomever is in its path. Don't be a Great White. Your family doesn't deserve that, your teammates/coworkers don't deserve it, your friends don't deserve it and YOU don't deserve to be perceived as the angry, bitter guy/chick. At your root, you're not angry... You're hurting and THAT's okay. But, you need to give yourself the grace to feel the hurt, sit in it and offer it to God. He can handle the truth of your pain.

Wisdom Nugget: Don't "soldier" through it, take a step away, excuse yourself, push your computer away and go have a good cry (and possibly journaling) session. Feel it. And DON'T apologize for it.

2. Grieving isn't always a Conscious Activity: "Well, what he HECK does that mean, Ange?!" Lol. I'm so glad you asked. What I mean by that is that grieving doesn't always start with an intentional conscious thought of the person you've lost. What I'm learning is that my spirit oftentimes knows I'm grieving before my mind and my body do. I'm recognizing, in my grieving, that my spirit picks up on internal heaviness before my mind and body register the heaviness as grief. This leads me to believe that bouts of grief can often be onset by unconscious cognition. My subconscious is thinking on and/or missing that person (or thing. We grieve relationships, pets, and so much more) before it becomes a train of thought in my conscious mind. So, in my case, my spirit is picking up on the heaviness that is the result of my subconscious thoughts.

My Response: I am learning to be more mindful when I sense heaviness. Being mindful that heaviness is present, even if only subconsciously at the moment, helps me to PRE-pare my response for when the heaviness moves from subconscious to conscious grief. I am learning to give myself those moments instead of pushing them away. It is unpleasant to feel that grief, that loss, but as the quote above from WandaVision suggests, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" It's okay for me to love my Mom well by allowing myself to acknowledge and experience the loss I feel at her earthly departure.

Wisdom Nugget: Understand that although bouts of grief seem to come out of nowhere, they actually don't. Develop a PRE-response to grief. How will you extend grace and kindness to yourself when grief comes to the surface?

3. "It comes in waves": I learned this early on in this grieving process. This was probably the very first thing that I became aware of in regards to grieving. As people aren't always sure what to say to show their love and care for you, they will often ask, "How are you doing?" First, let me say that I understand that this question is borne out of love and care, but it is not a great question to ask someone who is grieving, especially in the days immediately following their loss. This is not a great question because, honestly, we don't always know how we're doing. It's all very surreal and almost "out-of-body-ish" at first, wrapping your mind around the fact that this person (or thing) is no longer physically present with you. You're kind of on autopilot for a while. But, inevitably, everyone who loves you asks this question (normally because they're trying to figure out how they can meet the need in those moments) and what I learned and was able to communicate is that the grief comes in waves. I still had moments of laughter, silliness, tomfoolery and shenanigans, as is my custom, but I also had moments where waves of grief would come washing over me.

My Response: I often think in images and analogies. The image that came, for me, was waves, so what I began to do was utilize this language to let people know the truth. I didn't have an answer for the question of "how are you doing?" but I was able to communicate, "The grief comes in waves and right now I'm between waves." or "The grief comes in waves and right now, a wave is crashing." And I was okay with letting that be my answer to that question. Sometimes, I literally just said, "I don't really know how I'm doing." When you are grieving, your process is yours and yours alone. You don't have to explain your process to anyone unless you want to and you don't have to experience grief in the ways that they think you should. Some people may say, I can't believe she's laughing and posting GIFs like nothing ever happened, but others will know, I'm just in process and at that point in the process, I'm okay to joke and GIF to my heart's content. And um....... By the way.........

Wisdom Nugget: Be okay with kindly communicating however you need to. If people are constantly asking "how are you doing?" and you just don't really have an answer, it's okay to say, "I honestly don't know. That's not really a helpful question for me now, or one that I can answer at this point." If it's helpful for you to adopt this language of "waves" then by all means, adopt the analogy and let that become a part of your language. Eventually you can even reduce it to shorthand for your closest friends, accountability partners and those who cover you. It's as simple as shooting a text: "between"=I'm okay right now, "crashing"=a wave's crashing.

I hope this helps and to be sure, I'm pretty certain we'll talk about grief again in the future as I continue to learn. Feel free to comment, like and share this post with others. And since, I'm nothing if not a little enamored with the idea of bookending, I'd like to leave you with another quote from one of my favorite films (and books, for that matter), Memoirs of a Geisha:

"At the temple there is a poem called 'Loss' carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it."

~Arthur Golden, author

Allow yourself to feel it, Fam. I love you.

Forever In Pursuit of Surrender,

Angelique A. Strothers