Journals
Journals - August 3, 2024
I am no stranger to grief.
And though I know it well, like an old friend, I don’t think I carry the lines on my face. I don’t think my eyes tell the story. People ask me how I stay so positive. They ask how I continue to make it through. Frankly, the only option for me is to just keep moving. To give in or to let go, to fall into the darkness, and to be consumed by fear, buried in pain, tormented by the unknown, isn’t an option.
If you have been around me at some point over the last two years, you may have heard the story of the night that my son almost died. I prayed a prayer that night that I have only prayed one time since, and both times, those prayers were lead-ins to some of the most grief-filled moments in my own life. Moments where, if I chose to stop, if I chose to carry the weight of the moment and not to keep going, I would have fallen into the pit of despair.
I am no stranger to grief, but when you’ve faced death, when you’ve looked it in the eye and told death that it is not welcome here, it will not claim your loved one; something shifts within you – a resilience is born. An endurance is formed in the tears, in the cries. And because of your love for that person, you just can’t stop moving. It isn’t an option.
"An endurance is formed in the tears, in the cries."
I’m no stranger to grief; however, I now realize that I wear it on my sleeve. It’s the thread unraveling in the hidden seam. It’s in the lagging wristwatch and the shock of fear when your phone rings.
Grief is my duality. It’s in my joking demeanor and my loaded comments. In the cheerful words and the glistening eyes. It may actually be the lines on my forehead, the heavy bags under my eyes. It’s gray hairs along my forehead and in the pulsing ache in my veins that no statin or bypass can relieve.
I am no stranger to grief, but I have learned to make it my friend. I have learned to live in peace with it. I have learned to dwell alongside my ever-companion.
" I have learned to make it my friend. I have learned to live in peace with it. I have learned to dwell alongside my ever-companion."
I once heard an analogy that grief is like a room in your house. And in the freshest moments, you sit in the room with the doors locked, consumed entirely by its presence. You’re keeping watch or holding vigil. You black out the windows. You shut out everything around. But, as the days and the hours and the moments pass, you stretch and stand upon tired legs, you raise the blinds, you shake the dust off the curtains, and you unlock the door. One step at a time. It creaks and moans as you open it, and it sighs in relief as you step out.
Over the years, you return to that room in many ways, many times, and for many reasons. In some seasons, you linger in that room longer. You visit more frequently and lay flowers at the door. A time will come when you will succeed at shutting the door to that room. You will walk by without being held by the ghost of grief. It’s still there inside your house, a now distant friend and a silent companion. That pulse in your veins is never entirely gone. The grey hairs won’t ever leave. The lines on your forehead won’t ever change.
What changes is how you interact with it. What shifts is the hold it has on you. Do you need to open the door and sit for a while, or do you choose to visit, pay your respects to that old friend, and keep moving forward?
"You will walk by without being held by the ghost of grief."
