Thoughts On Grief that Lasts

I’m posting this on the three-year anniversary of my dad’s death, though what was written was around one year after his death. I’ve held off posting this because it’s a less “polished” post that reads more like a journal entry.

Most of us don’t talk about grief or death. It’s hard, uncomfortable, and a bit of a downer. But they are very real. Grief still hits me at random times or in unexpected ways. I’d also say read this post for some great Wendell Berry quotes on grief, and here’s a post with some articles and resources I found helpful on death and grieving.

Everyone experiences and processes grief in different ways, and not everyone finds comfort in their grief in the same place, so these are just my own thoughts and experiences. My hope is these random thoughts can help someone else process some of what they’re feeling but also to see God’s nearness and goodness in their grief. Some of them are practical things to do (like consider the gifts and give thanks) and some of them seek to merely explain my experience and thoughts.

Grief and gratitude aren’t in competition with one another or opposed to one another.

If life is a song, neither grief nor gratitude receive solos, but both join in chorus. Parts of the song might allow one or the other to sing a bit louder or step into the light, but that is temporary, for the whole of the song must be keep in harmony.

In my grief, I still choose gratitude. I choose it not as a cloth that wipes away grief or a distraction from grief. Gratitude doesn’t replace or remove grief. You can have both held together. I think what gratitude does is it keeps your head above water. You can grieve for who or what is lost and simultaneously give thanks for who or what you had (and what lasts). As the waves of grief toss you up and down, you wrap your arms around gratitude like a flotation device so you don’t sink. It keeps you upright and you continue on, balanced by the forces of grief pulling you down and gratitude pulling you up. 

But if you only have grief and lack gratitude, all that remains are the heavy weights of resentment or regrets, and these will pull you all the way under. Bitterness, regret, and hopelessness will drown you. They wrap themselves around your legs and drag you to the depths of grief without any life-giving oxygen to breathe. Before that happens, and so that it doesn’t happen, seize the lifeline of gratitude. 

Grief doesn’t go away. 

Some scratches heal and go away and some leave scars that remain. You will wear some of those scars on your skin the rest of your life and you will wear grief on your heart for just as long. The pain or ache or sorrow of the grief might increase or decrease, feel more acute or distant, or be at the forefront or more at the back of your mind in various days and seasons, but it’s always there. At least the grief of losing a loved one. 

The honesty and awareness that it will likely remain rather than the assumption or expectation that it will fade away make me more prepared to carry it. I think if you expect grief to fizzle out over time then you feel confused, overwhelmed, or trapped when it doesn’t leave. It becomes an unwelcome guest, even an intruder, in your life. But when you know it will remain in some way for quite a while or forever, you’re not surprised when it makes its way unannounced through the door again. You’re ready to carry it, and are able to carry it, because you realize the grief remains as long as love remains, and love does not end with separation and death. Though no person or thing could fill the hole left by their loss, grief sort of wiggles in and takes up residence there. Grief is present where the person is not, in a different way of course, but standing in for them in their absence.

Grief doesn’t stop and neither does life. 

Even through grief is strong and doesn’t go away, you have to keep living. Life includes high highs, low lows, and thousands of smaller hills and valleys in between. Death, loss, and grief are a part of this fallen life and as much as it might grieve you, you have to keep living. I lament the pain in the loss through prayer, give thanks for the gifts enjoyed in and through the person, and say “Thy will be done” in trust the Lord’s plan and timing—however beyond me it might be. But you then keep on going, whether it’s in making new memories or simply enduring ordinary days. If you’re still breathing, God is not done with you and there are, there really and always are, many other good things He has for you. Alongside the reasons for sorrow there are always reasons for joy and pleasure. Each week has its own blessings. Each day offers you gifts if you have the eyes to see them. You accept the losses and the gifts, you lament and give thanks, you keep living ordinary days and significant ones, and life continues to roll on. It doesn’t stop. And you must not stop either. You don’t have to let the person or the memories or the grief go to move forward and find new joys and new relationships and new memories. Pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, old memories that only live inside you and new memories you can share with others, both are streams you must walk in. You don’t have to choose or get to choose, the world (or God) has us experience both in this life.

Grief is strong. 

Grief can stay around and persist just below the surface, almost like a dull headache you learn how to ignore when you need to. But then grief can also detonate and explode with a crushing force. For me, grief is sorrow or sadness that aches, but unlike the ache of a headache, you can’t take a pill and make it go away because no pill brings the person you miss back. 

It’s not that every second is sorrowful, but in a sense, many things are now seasoned with a bit of sorrow. You can’t, or you shouldn’t, dwell on it all the time, but on any given day if I think about my dad—think about him or think about something that comes to mind (like earlier I talked to my son about growing watermelons and it reminded me of my dad gardening and how much I enjoyed checking in to see how his vegetables were doing)—so if I think about my dad and choose to walk through that door, it’s a reminder again of how much I miss him. Sometimes, maybe in the car, your thoughts and memories of a person will be brought to mind, and it’s up to you whether that’s simply a window you want to glance in but not fully walk into in that moment or whether you’re ready to open up the door and go down specific halls of memory that will take you deeper into grief. You can’t, or at least I can’t, open the door every time, so you learn to pick your moments. The grief persists, sometimes in a low hum and sometimes with a loud drum, but it’s a strong, powerful thing that can feel like sometime just punched you in the heart.

As a Christian with grief for the loss of a Christian, there is hope and joy in knowing their life has gotten significantly better.

The Bible speaks of being sorrowful and yet rejoicing, and of grieving but not without hope. I believe that because of Jesus my dad’s spirit is in heaven and one day his body will be resurrected and made whole as spirit and a glorified body reunite on the New Earth. Because Jesus paid for my dad’s sin with his blood and because Jesus punched his ticket to heaven in his resurrection and ascension, there is immense hope, peace, and joy in knowing my dad’s “in a better place,” which is a watered-down if not neutered way of saying that all his pain and suffering in this sin-cursed world has been exchanged for all the joys and glory of a God-centered, sin-free heaven. As Tim Keller, who recently died of cancer, said, “All death can do to a Christian is make their life infinitely better.” For the Christian who dies, death is a gateway, their golden-ticket that leads them to place of infinite joy, eternal peace, and unending satisfaction. We would neither want to bring them back nor would they want to come back to this place.

So, yes, there is great reason for joy in Christ’s ultimate victory over death that my dad is tasting because of his faith in Jesus. In fact, one thing that is helpful is considering the joys my dad has gained now. I don’t find that many thoughts or even truths immensely comforting when it comes to losing a loved one, but the more I consider his gain in death it helps balance my loss in his death. 

[This is a reminder really of what a gift it is to know someone had trusted in God’s grace alone by resting in faith alone as they trusted in Jesus alone for forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. I don’t have to wonder or worry about where my dad is and what his fate was, not because the good things my dad did—which were many—or the bad things my dad did—which were also many—but because his hope was in what Jesus did for him not in what he could do for Jesus. This convinces me that for those dying or who will die—which is all of us—of all the gifts, comforts, and blessings you could leave behind and offer to those you will leave on this earth, the single most important one is the rest and assurance that you will not have to bear the weight of the just punishment for your sins against God because Jesus bore that weight for you at the cross. Knowing my dad’s hope and trust were in Jesus has given me immense peace and joy. Consider it, for yourself and for all those you will one day leave behind.]

Grief might be more about what we’ve lost than what they lost.

(I say might because I think the age and circumstances of someone’s death might affect this). But with all that I wrote in the prior point, I’d just add, yes there is plenty of reason for rejoicing because of the thankfulness I have for my time with my dad and for joy in where my dad now is, but all that rejoicing doesn’t eliminate the presence of grief. I sometimes hear this talked about as if we don’t need to grieve because death for a believer is a promotion, a gain, and a celebration. And I believe those are true, but at least for someone who has lived a “full life” like my dad, my grief is not for them. My grief isn’t that his life was cut short (though I wanted him to live longer), or that he’s missing out on certain things (though I think he would miss many things), and it’s certainly not because I’m sad for him as if the best part of his life is over (because I believe the best part has just begun), but instead, I grieve not for him but for me and for others here who have lost him. You might ever hear someone say or write, “Don’t cry for me. Don’t grieve for me. I’m ready to go.” And fair enough, but almost all the grief I feel a year later isn’t for what my dad lost in dying but in what I lost in my dad dying.

That’s why grief sticks around and is so strong, even when you rejoice in their new and improved situation and location. I grieve because I miss him, because my life was better with him around, because his absence is painful, because I wish I could pick up the phone and call him but I can’t, because at my daughter’s soccer game he’s not there on the sideline, because when I pick up my phone to text him he’s not there, because when I think all the good he brought in to my life (which I really am thankful for) I realize his loss means those good things he added aren’t there anymore—or at least in the same way or from him. So while I rejoice for him, I grieve for myself and those he loved who miss him. His gain was still our loss. The world felt a bit brighter with him and feels a bit bleaker without him.

And none of that is said in hopelessness or as a rejection of blessing or a denial of God’s goodness, wisdom, or even His ability to bring other blessings into life, but it’s simply an admission that sin means things are “not the way they are supposed to be” and so death and the pain it smacks us with are “not the way it’s supposed to be.” So I think it’s okay to give thanks to God, trust His wisdom in the timing and nature of my dad’s death, and believe God can supply what’s been lost in my dad’s passing while also honestly saying that when you lose some people in your life, it really is a loss. And not just for a day or a year but for the rest of your life. Until the resurrection, when sin’s curse is reversed and all wrongs are made right, it will remain a loss. Grief is a reminder you’ve lost something good. I thought losing the person was the hardest part of death, but living without them is as hard as losing them.

Now I’ve sometimes wondered about which should be “dominant” or which should “win out,” the rejoicing for them or the grieving for them being gone? It feels like, and it’s sometimes taught, that the rejoicing should sort of win out, which I take to mean we should feel more rejoicing than grief. Maybe that’s true and maybe it’s not, and maybe I have more rejoicing than I do grief, both are hard to tell. But here’s how I’m thinking about that question right now (which is, of course, subject to change with time and reflection and experience). I think most of us tend to feel things stronger for ourselves than we do for others. (If a close friend wins a thousand dollars and I lose out on a thousand dollars, my excitement for them would probably not be as strong as the frustration for myself.) Because of that, though the rejoicing I experience for my dad and the sorrow or grief I experience for my dad being gone might be equal (again, might be?), I probably feel or experience my grief in what’s loss in a greater, thicker, or felt way than I do joy for him. Again, it’s not because the grief is bigger or more true than the joy, but because it’s my loss and his joy, the joy for him feels less personal than my loss—if that’s the right way to say it. Maybe it’s selfish or self-centered, but I think because we experience the loss of that person in a deep way and the joy experienced for them is real and deep but “less personal” because we don’t get to actually taste or see their newfound joy ourselves (yet), the grief often feels like it’s not pushed to the side by the joy. And that’s because my sense, feeling, and experience of grief and loss have more to do what my temporal experience. At the same time, I don’t think grief is ultimate or “bigger” (to use simple words) or will have the final say. I think the rejoicing for them and the joy I have in knowing they joy they now have isultimate, bigger, and will win the day. I might not feel that in the same way I feel my grief, at least not now or not all the time, but I can still know something is more true and ultimate and will have the final word, whether I feel it or not.

Grief also gives you perspective. 

It changes you and helps you live in light of eternity. It protects you from any false notions that you can or will live forever, or that you can’t be gone in a day. This can be a benefit and blessing, though it can also create sadness in itself. For example, and to give a specific example, I might be in the car on the way to pick up my son (still a toddler) and thinking about my dad. Now when I go to get my son and pick him up in my arms and see that beautiful smile, the awareness of the brevity of life (which moved from knowledge to experience in my dad’s passing) can sometimes send two streaks of thoughts through my mind in opposite directions like lightning bolts piercing the night’s sky. When I lift my son up, in that moment I’m reminded life is short and I’m not promised tomorrow, so I hold him with a greater sense of love, thankfulness, and even urgency because I don’t take him or my time with him for granted. It’s a bolt of joy and gratitude in that moment as I hug him tight. At the exact same moment, running in the opposite direction, I can have a bolt of sorrow enter my mind as I’m also made aware that at any time he could be taken from me or I have from him, and that someday, if I die before him then he will also miss me and feel sorrow in me being gone. Both gratitude and sorrow for him are increased because of the knowledge or how brief life is and that death awaits us all.

Grief feels isolating but it joins you to all others in grief.

Part of what I would say to those of you grieving the loss of a loved one—or grieving from anything else—is that you are not alone. There are many silent sufferers who carry grief without talking about it. Part of that is because we as a society don’t know how to talk about hard or uncomfortable things, such as grief or death or loss. It feels awkward and weird, if not embarrassing to talk about feeling sadness, sorrow, or grief. That’s especially true if you’re mainly around people who don’t even know the person you lost. It feels weird to open up without anyone asking and it feels weird for many to ask without a prompt, so the subject of grieving a loved one rarely gets brought up as time passes. We can then feel alone in our grief, but others are walking the same road. It’s okay to not talk about it and know others are in the same boat whether you know it or not, and it’s also okay to want to talk about it and find it who might be in the boat with you and see how they’re finding the strength to keep paddling along.

Regrets are normal but a waste of time. 

When someone dies, you could have almost an endless number of regrets, however good or bad a relationship was. Regrets can pop into your mind at any time. I regret not having more time with my dad, though I know no matter how much extra time we would have had it would not have been enough. I regret not going on a cruise with my dad. I think you always wish you would have talked more or made the conversations more meaningful. I think most people can think of any number of things they wish they would have done better, different, or more. It’s easy to wish you would have been able to say to them again one more time what you felt or to have fully resolved any issues, questions, or hurts that never got dealt with. But unless you’re in a Disney movie, wishes don’t get you anywhere or accomplish anything. It’s normal to have regrets or wish you could back and do something different or one more time, but you can’t. So I think you have to push the regrets aside as soon as they come up. Regrets tend to be a black hole that suck you in and destroy you, or the spinning ride at the playground where once you get on it’s hard to get off. Rather than walk into the quicksand of regrets and feel them rising higher and higher, I’d tell you they’re largely a waste of time you should avoid. Instead of what didn’t happen, give thanks for what did happen. Instead of what you can’t change or fix, take joy in the good moments and gifts given in the relationship. You can’t undo what was done or rewrite what’s been written, but you also don’t need to. Life isn’t perfect and relationships aren’t perfect and the perfect past or perfect relationship your regrets taunt you with aren’t possible or necessary. Even the best of relationships have their ordinary, dull, painful, and regrettable moments, and none of that ruins or reduces the value of what was had. Don’t invest your time in the negative regrets but in  positive reflection, being grateful for what you did have and for the imperfect experiences and memories instead of grumbling about them.

Consider the gifts you had and don’t just consider what’s been lost. 

Remind yourself of the joy in the memories made rather than only feeling haunted or held down by those memories. Memories are a tricky thing. They remind you how much live you’ve really lived and how truly blessed your life has been, and yet in remembering these things, they can also simultaneously whisper to you that all that is past has been lost, and if it’s lost, the meaning and joy in them is lost. But that is not true. All those blessings and memories were meaningful and are meaningful. They were a part of your life and are part of what’s shaped you and remain valuable, even if there is no one else who shares the memory any longer. I think of how many moments with my two little kids they will never remember (who remembers your life as a two or three year old) and yet there is joy in both having lived them, joy in the cumulative effect of them in a relationship, and joy in my own knowledge of them that I’ll hold, even if they are too young now to remember later. And the same is true in our moments and memories with all those we lose.