A few weeks ago I was asked to share at the July meeting of Faith & Grief in El Paso. Following is what I shared, my own journey through grief.
My Journey of Faith & Grief
Working in ministry, being a military spouse, and being the mother of a cancer survivor I’ve been surrounded by death and grief. Only one of my grandparents is still living. In fact, my grandfather, very much the leader of our family, just passed away in May. But I haven’t fully processed his death and was unable to attend the funeral. Perhaps that’s where I get stuck. When those I love pass away I have yet to be able to attend the funeral. I’m so far removed from family here.
Losing my grandfather changed our lives in one very significant way, however. This year, once my husband has finished his time in the Army, we will be moving to Tampa to be near family. I’m tired of not being there for the important moments, the weddings, the babies and the funerals.
Remembering Those We’ve Lost
My husband wears a black remembrance bracelet for a young soldier he deployed with but who did not return home. He has lost more than I can remember the count for. I don’t grieve the men and women my husband lost because I knew them, I feel their loss watching and sitting with my husband as he remembers and grieves their absence.
Two years ago a friend’s daughter died. Her daughter was a friend of my children, a child I taught in our homeschool co-op. It hit me harder than any other death I’ve experienced but I immediately fell into the supportive friend and mother role trying to help my children navigate grief before they even hit puberty. My son wouldn’t allow us to say her name for over a year, though memories pop up daily of her my kids have a hard time talking about her. Walking with my children through death has been a lesson in just showing up, sitting with people when they hurt, and giving them the time and space they need to grieve.
There is no timeline.
We all heal and mend and remember in our own time. It taught me who around me I could trust with my pain and who I couldn’t. Grief has taught me how to stand by my children and just be present when there is nothing I can do to fix things.
Grief & Guilt
I don’t know that I know how to grieve the finality of death. The moments in life that have hurt and thrown me into grief and questioning my faith the most did not end in death. We survived them. Or I should say my daughter survived. When she was 6 months old she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. I pleaded with God that he heal her. I believed fully that he had, up until the doctors came and told me that the surgery had gone well and they had successfully removed her eye along with her cancer. To say I was angry at God in the moment is mild. To this day I struggle with trusting him with my children’s safety.
One memory from those first few weeks has always stuck with me. Katie had just gone back for her MRI. Wrapped in a blanket and feeling as if the waiting room was at negative 20, I was rocking back and forth, my knees to my chest, crying. A woman approached me sat down next to me and asked if she could pray for me. I don’t remember answering. She prayed, a simple prayer. One that asked God to remind me that He was there, one that asked that God comfort me and one that asked for healing if it was in His will.
The miracle I had wanted did not come - complete and total healing. My daughter lived. Yet all I saw was how God had failed her and me. The idea of God healing Katie if it were in His will angered me, if he truly loved her as much as I did why was the healing not happening.
Eleven years later, I can honestly thank God for this journey. God’s miracles do not always come in the packages we desire. That woman who prayed for me probably walked away thinking her words fell on deaf ears, more than likely all she left with was feeling my anger and hurt. Her words and her kindness stayed with me. Through my anger, I never forgot her kindness and her desire to help me. She will never know how she touched my life, she may have forgotten, but I will never forget her and the moment our lives crossed.
It’s difficult to wrap my head around why when so many around us lose their lives to war and cancer, why we still remain. Survivor’s guilt is something that my children, my husband and my self-struggle with constantly. I’m learning to accept that there aren’t always answers, to take one day at a time, and to give myself and others the freedom to grieve at their own pace. At the end of the day I want to be that friend and I want to be surrounded by friends who simply show up in the most difficult moments of life.
Broken & Blessed
I feel as though I navigate through life equally broken and blessed.
My heart aches for the suffering of the children we meet at St. Jude and the soldiers we have lost, and the heartache of their families. It is full of guilt at the joy I have when I look at my own daughter.
