Scenes of Grief And Signs Of Healing

Modern psychology describes the early stages of grieving, in Sigmund Freud's classic phrase, as a "painful dejection" best coped with in three stages. We face up to the fact of loss, however shattering the loss may be. We consign the once here and now relationship to a special place in our memories. And finally, we invest ourselves in other relationships and causes. At each stage, it helps to have caring people present who accept us in whatever stage of letting-go we may or may not be, and who offer us realistic assurance that things will get better.

Along with this widely accepted perspective on grief, there is another that may be especially important at this holiday season, when economic recession and the wrenching losses it is imposing are making ordinary grieving even more difficult. It is the perspective of faith. My thoughts about it are shaped by a few more experiences I had at the Grief Recovery Gathering about which I wrote last time. The first was with Cap. (Again, no real names are used in the vignettes.) He summed up well the kind of feelings many were experiencing that afternoon: Sometimes it still feels like it did those awful days after Jimmy died in the storm, when I told God I'd never trust him again, but being around all of these good people makes me realize just how far I've come and that the pain really is getting better. I think I'm almost ready to let God back into my life.

Not everyone, however, found in this particular gathering the solace and encouragement that Cap did. For Brenda, it activated memories of her most intense grief rather than the relief she experienced from it. A debilitating illness in her late 20's had put an end to Brenda's promising career, destroying not only her mobility but her dreams. Both the ease and the optimism with which reunion group members moved around to greet each other were, as she put it, like salt poured into wounds. Nevertheless, Brenda went on to say, I keep coming because I want to be here, and to keep on hoping that both my body and my mind are going to stop hurting so much.

Tom had still a different reaction to the celebratory tone of the gatherings. It was the hugs that got to him the most: These folks are connecting with each other so beautifully, he told me, but I'm still feeling sorry for myself for feeling so alone. She was my whole world. I don't know if I'll ever be able to reach out to anyone again, even in the way that just friends do.

What can we say, from the perspective of faith, about these three fellow strugglers? About Cap, whose son drowned during Hurricane Katrina, we can say a word of thanks that he is beginning to understand that God is not a Zeus-like, capricious storm-gatherer. Rather, God is the Holy One who seeks in love to make us holy in His glorious presence. And God does this through all circumstances, good and bad.

As for Brenda, we can say a word of thanks for her courage. She still feared that there may be nothing ahead for her except debilitation, dependency, and an early death. But she is facing the prospect by looking deeply into the faces of others struggling with losses not as great as hers, but gaining courage in the process. At one time, she was her church's organist, and so her next words should not have surprised me. They were from the fourth verse of the magnificent hymn, "For All the Saints." Then, she quoted, "steals on the ear the distant triumph song."

Finally, there was Tom, still holding himself back from those who care about him. One of his grown children summed up his blocked grief work especially well. As Tom summarized it, Junior really jumped all over me yesterday because he thinks I'm not being fair with either my family or my friends. They want the old Tom back, he said, not the Tom who acts like he doesn't care about them anymore and isn't holding up his end of anything. Tom's son put his finger on the central issue at stake. Love is not supposed to die, even when the people we love do. Tom got the message. The last thing he said to me that afternoon was that it was time for him to start opening himself to others again, no matter how much he missed his wife.

This Christmas season, a lot of people who are grieving the loss of a job, a home, or a secure future, on top of the loss of a loved one, are finding it especially hard to rejoice about very much. Except those who know from the depths of their souls that there are good things that do last forever. And that the greatest among them is love --- their own, ours, and God's, in Christ. Venite adoramus.