Almost done...

The semester is almost done. I am one concluding paragraph away from finishing my history research paper, and hence this semester. And I am stuck.

A friend asked me earlier to day if I was ready for Christmas. He knows about some of the things that have been going on in my life, so when I stumbled over my answer, he understood. I realized that it is entirely possible that when I do finish this research paper, and the pressures of the semester is done, the reality of the season may just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Christmas is in four days. I am separated from my husband and my mother won't be with us. Am I ready? Does that mean, do I have everything bought, wrapped and under the tree? Have I completed all the food-making plans? Is the tree up, and the house adequately decorated? Almost.

But am I ready? No. And I don't think I will ever be ready. What is ready, anyway?

Then I think about the first Christmas. Were Mary & Joseph ready for the birth of Jesus? Apparently they were, because when He came, they were there for him. He had everything that He needed. He was protected, loved, cared for.

For me, this year, there is no "ready" other than the way that Joseph and Mary were ready. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

This means, that as hard as the next few days are going to be, there is no reason for me to be hiding behind an unfinished research paper. Christmas isn't about me, after all, and the One who it is about is in my heart and mind and soul. This is His thing. I'm going to let Him do His thing, and just hold on for the ride.

Now...back to the paper...

Grief & Mourning - Back to Job's friends

Remember Job's friends? Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar? It's been a while since the first entry on these guys, so here's a reminder of an unspeakably cool moment in their lives.

"When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." Job 2:12 - 13

I think that one of the reasons many of us struggle with being genuinely helpful to those who are in mourning is that the whole mourning thing makes us so uncomfortable. It presents us with an impossible dilemma. Someone we care about is in pain. We may also be in pain. We want, more than anything, to bring some relief to the pain of our loved one. And the unfortunate truth is that there is nothing that we can do to ease such deep, profound suffering. We feel helpless, useless, sad, inadequate. It is excruciating, to want so badly to help and to be so unable to do anything. We do what we can, but it's not, and never will be, enough.

This is the amazing thing about Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Of course they wanted to make Job feel better. His pain was breaking their hearts, too. They understood something that we, in modern times, have a tendency to forget. Maybe the goal isn't neccesarily to feel better. Maybe the pain, as horrid and crippling as it is, is supposed to be there. Maybe it's not something to relieve, or stop, but rather something to live through. Maybe mourning is a part of life, another path to be travelled. If this is true, if sorrow is something to be embraced because it honors the memory and value of the one lost, then what people who are sorrowing need is fellow travellers who will walk the path with them.

Job's friends get this. In fact, the Jewish tradition of sitting Shiva addresses the deep need that mourners have for community. When a Jewish person loses someone very close to them, the time between the death and burial is a time of intensely personal shock and grief. It is a private time for mourners, when they are often left alone while the body of the deceased is taken care of and funeral arrangements are being made. This period of time lasts for three days.

When it is over, though, the tradition of "sitting shiva" begins. A house is chosen, either the home of the deceased or the home of a close mourner. For seven days, the house is filled with people, and the mourner is rarely if ever left alone. It is understood that at this point, with the funeral services over, mourners are beginning to realize the fullness of their loss. The shock has worn off, but the ramifications of the loss are sinking in, to devastating effect. It is a wildly painful place to be, but the tradition of sitting shiva means that they do not have to be there alone. Like Job's friends, people who have comfortable places to be, productive lives to live and happy things to do, put it all aside and for as long as they can, chose to walk the paths of sorrow and pain with someone they care about. It's not easy, not for anyone.

Inherent in this tradition is the idea that sorrow is not a problem to be fixed. It is to be lived. So many things in life are uncomfortable. Giving birth. Puberty. Menopause. Bungee jumping. Watching one's parents boogie to the Beatles. Sometimes life hurts. There is something profoundly loving in the willingness to enter into someone else's pain. It is also powerful. It brings hope in acceptance, and leaves mourners feeling understood and supported. Ultimately, it becomes part of the healing.

Job's friends would go on to prove that one doesn't have to be a theological super hero in order to carry the burden of another. When Job and his friends begin to discuss the theology behind what had happened to Job, things get a little weird. Job's friends didn't "get it". Still, in a way, they had earned the right to speak, even if they were off-track. God dealt with it all in the end, anyway. The important thing, the thing that too often gets missed by preachers and teachers of the Word, is that Job's friends came, and wept, and stayed.

Isn't it amazing, how often the simplest things are the most important?

Grief and Mourning - A Story

The trip to Cornwall went much better than I thought it would. My niece was brilliant in her role as Jasmine in the play, Aladin, and while I did feel weepy at the end, I really enjoyed the energy, skill and sheer fun of the show. Afterwards, I went to my sister's and spent some quality time chatting with her. We had a lot to talk about, and it felt good to talk with someone who was literally walking the same path of mourning as I was.

I am anxious to revisit our friends from the biblical book of Job. I'll share this one story and then we'll talk some more about it, probably tomorrow.

A few years ago, it was early morning and Grace was getting ready to head out to catch the school bus. We lived in a very small house, and our first floor was just one room. The television was on, set to a news channel. I was in our little kitchen making Grace's lunch while she packed her school bag. We both were half-heartedly paying attention to the television when a story from the Middle East came on. The screen showed a funeral procession, with hundreds of mourners following the upraised casket in a weeping, wailing crowd. The casket was moved awkwardly through the crowd as broken-hearted men grasped at it, pulling at their hair and face and weeping loudly.

We watched for a few moments, and then Grace made a comment, expressing outwardly exactly what I had been thinking.

"I wish we could mourn like that here."

This is something I have often thought about. There are people in my life who, if I lost them through death, would no doubt result in someone having to scrape me off of the ceiling. There are circumstances where screaming into a pillow just doesn't cut it.

The thing that really interested me about this incident is that Grace is not an overly emotionally expressive person. She has a calm nature, and is a deeply private person. Her observation wasn't a matter of personality or personal preference. She does, though, have a profound awareness of the value of people, and an understanding of the depth of pain that comes when we lose someone we love.

Her comment encouraged me to keep thinking and questioning our cultural approach to mourning.

More next time.

Going to Cornwall

I'm going to Cornwall today, for the first time since my Mum's memorial in October. My niece is in a community theater production of Aladin, in which she will no doubt be brilliant. Grace and I are heading in to see the 1:00pm show.

I woke up this morning filled with anxiety. I thought it was because I had had a rough night, physically, and was concerned about having to deal with a busy day while carrying a sleep debt. Then I realized that it was the first time I am heading down the 401 to Cornwall since October. Somehow, my body seems to catch on to these things more quickly than my brain does.

Of course, my brain always clues in...eventually. So now I know why my stomach is churning. Still, I am planning on having one of those days that has become more and more common lately. Bittersweet. I will keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. The day will most likely bring sorrow, but laughter as well. I will be so proud of my niece, and will cry because of it. I will also cry because Mum won't be there beside me to fuss about the seating and tell people that Meagan is her granddaughter.

I don't dread it. One thing I have learned, in dealing with adversity, is that everything becomes much easier to handle if we give up the foolish notion that these kinds of things shouldn't happen to us. It is what it is. If I accept that, my eyes are open to all the many sweet and wonderful things that are also going on, while life is river-dancing on my heart.

Let the show begin....

Grief and Mourning, a couple of guys who really tried...

Today I am going to go all Biblical on you. Now, if you aren't the kind of person who reacts to that with "Woot! High-5!!", I'm going to ask you to bear with me. There are a few people in the Bible who have something to teach us about reaching out to people who are mourning. The funny thing is, these guys usually don't get good press in the average sermon or devotional.

The Bible is full of people who don't come off very heroic on paper, and it is one of my pet peeves that we tend to like to sit in our comfy little lives and shake our heads at them. Let's be honest. Most of us can barely handle a 20 minute wait at our local fast food joint. But we all think we'd be the epitome of sainted patience and trust while stuck hundreds of miles in the desert like the Israelites were, with no visible source of food or water and a multitude of hungry babies and animals depending on us. Really, now.

But I digress. These three guys are Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Good Biblical names. Given their selfless foray into the annals of Biblical loser history, one would think that they would be better known. But alas, they are not. In fact, they are best known by the company that they keep. That company would be a fellow named Job. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are Job's three friends, the ones that spent the majority of the book of Job trying to comfort him. In the beginning of the book, they rock. Later on, not so much.

Check it out - "When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads." Job 2:11-12

So, what was happening with Job? The book of Job is a book about sorrow, and suffering. And it begins with a challenge. God knows Job well. Job is a faithful man, a committed servant of God, and God has blessed him for his faith. One day, God points Job out to Satan, and praises Job for his faithfulness. Satan makes an observation. He wonders if maybe Job is so faithful because God has been so good to him. After all, who wouldn't love a God who had given him so much? God gives Satan permission to start hacking at some of Job's blessings. God is confident that Job's love is real, and that it is for God Himself, and not for the gifts from His hands. Satan does his best, and before the dust clears, Job has lost his livelihood, his wealth, and most horrifically, his many children. Later, God allows Satan to take another stab at the still faithful Job, with one stipulation - he is not allowed to take Job's life. So, Job loses his health, as well.

It is at this point that Job's friends show up.

They have heard about Job's losses, and immediately come together and commit to going to Job to offer what comfort they can. When they see him, even from far off, their hearts are broken for their friend and they begin to weep. Aloud. Because real men weep out loud.

But they don't stop with the tears. They continue on, tearing at their robes in pain, throwing dust on their heads as a public symbol of their mourning hearts. They are broken, because their friend is broken.

So, what comes next? This is the amazing part. Just listen to verse 13 - "Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."

They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. They stayed. They took Job seriously. The took as much of his pain as they could, onto themselves. They committed to not leaving him alone. And they took their cue from Job. His pain was too big. There were no words. What do you say, when there's nothing to say? These guys said nothing. They wept and wailed, and probably prayed, but they understood. Job's pain was beyond words, and they loved him enough to be comfortable saying nothing.

Of course, when we read on in the book of Job, we see that when they did begin to speak, they weren't terribly helpful. Yeah, like we haven't all been there. But they stayed. They entered into Job's pain and stayed there, even when they didn't need to. It wasn't their pain. They had livelihoods, healthy families and livestock to go back to. Job couldn't get away from the pain that he was in, but his friends could have. They chose not to.

This impressed me. I have to ask myself, how willing am I to enter into the pain of others? Who cares if I have all the right things to say? There is a lot here about how to comfort and support those among us who mourn.

In fact, I think this may be worth two posts.

Until next time....

Call me crazy, but...

So, I knew that at some point in this series, I would begin to regret having started it. Who knew it would be less than a week into it? On Friday, I had a majorly difficult day, which led to thoughts somewhere along the line of, "What the frik have I done? Why on earth did this blog series ever make sense? Am I crazy? Of course I'm crazy. The real question is, WHY THE HECK DO I WANT TO BROADCAST TO THE ENTIRE WORLD THE EXTENT OF MY CRAZY??!!"


Alas, I have committed to this project, and it's too late to change my mind now. So here we are.


Friday was a rough day. I had an appointment with my cardiologist. I had been having a lot of angina over the summer, and he wanted to see me in November when the stress of starting school had settled down, and we could see if the angina was settling down as well. The question is always whether the angina is being caused by stress induced cardiac artery spasms or a blockage. Unfortunately, life never settled down after school started, and so rather than wait any longer, he is setting me up for a nuclear stress test to see if there are any blockages.


Most of us have experienced the physical consequences of stress and sorrow. Our bodies, spirits and emotions are interconnected, which is where nervous butterflies in our stomachs come from. Also the urge to pee when we are afraid. And stress headaches. And broken hearts that actually feel like broken hearts. People who are chronically ill learn to anticipate the effects of stress on their bodies. Sometimes, I think, when things are really tough, we go to the doctor for help with the physical symptoms when what we really want is just to feel better. We hope that this time, somehow, Dr. Miracle Worker will have the treatment that will make it all better. All of it.


So, when he instead focuses on the physical and sets up tests that just seem to add to the stress, we leave his office feeling discouraged. Or in my case, teetering on the edge of weeping and wailing. Stupid doctor. Stupid tests. A stress test? Does that really sound like something I need right now? Seriously?


Long story short, after the appointment, I went out for lunch and shopping with friends. The weeping and wailing started in the restaurant. Then I felt better. Then there was a little bit of weeping in the grocery store. Stupid poinsettias. Then I felt better. Got a 16 pound turkey for eight dollars. Yay for me.


A few years ago, my New Year's resolution was to be more honest and authentic in my writing, especially on my blog. The only censor that I want to allow is the censorship of love, respect and honor with respect to the people in my life. It's a fine line. I've tripped over it a few times. Of course, when I am talking about myself and my own feelings, I have much more freedom. The point behind this blog series on mourning is that people don't talk about their experiences with mourning, and many feel alone. We wonder if we are normal. We wonder what normal is. We are filled with things to say, and are often afraid of saying them. Or maybe it's just me.


In any case, the truth is that as scary as it is to live out loud these days, it's much scarier not to.


Call me crazy....

On Grief & Mourning - Feeling Better

This morning, I woke up to the sound of a large vehicle outside my bedroom window. My first thought was, "Man alive, I hope that's a confused garbage truck." Turns out, it was a snowplow. Yeah, that was behind door #2.

So the world is covered with snow. And today, or more specifically, this morning, I am feeling better. Actually, after my post last night, I felt better. Then Madison, who is sporting a broken jaw and 3 broken ribs from an accident a week and a half ago, came down from her room and asked for custard. The last of which I had just eaten. So I made some more while she sat at the table and chatted with me. And I felt better. Then I asked Grace about a paper due in Strategies class today, and she told me about what she had written. And I felt better. Then I took the rat cage to the couch, with momma Feivel and her 9 six week old babies in it. I sat with the bottom of the cage on my lap while the ratties ran all over the cage bottom, munching on popcorn I had made for them and fighting for space in my hands. And you guessed it. I felt better.

Right after Mum died, I remember being disturbed by how easily the world just kept moving on without her. I had this odd sense, as I lived my life each day, that everything seemed so oddly normal. I probably even seemed normal. But I was walking around with a huge, gaping hole in my heart. Not knowing how to be, I just tried to be normal. It was confusing and hard. As time goes by, though, the world's determination to keep moving forward has become a kindness. Activities remind me that I am and always will be more than a broken heart. Relationships offer support and care, and opportunities to support and care for others. The ratties and Jean-Luc provide humor and "awwwww...'moments.

And the snow? The snow means it's now officially time to start playing Christmas music. And that's a very good thing.

I know that there are no guarantees for tomorrow, or even this afternoon. But for now, I'm feeling better.