Atlanta, GA
January 18, 2024
We’ve reached the stage of life when losing loved ones is increasingly common. A few weeks ago, the mother of a dear friend died. Yesterday, we attended the funeral, which prompted reflection on how we process pain.
John Adams once asked a septuagenarian Thomas Jefferson if he’d willingly live his life over again. Jefferson assured him that he would, while acknowledging that “even in the happiest life, there are some terrific convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account.”
That brought Jefferson, who had suffered considerably, to the question of grief. “I have often wondered”, he said, “for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have an useful object, but what is the use of grief?”
Adams gave a thoughtful response that satisfied Jefferson, who assured his older friend that “to the question on the utility of Grief, no answer remains to be given….I see that, with the other evils of life, it is destined to temper the cup we are to drink.”
Increasing Occasions of Loss
I have been fortunate. In my life, grief has been fleeting. Like all of us, I’ve lost relatives, but few before their time. My wife is well, my sons are healthy, my parents are active, and my brother and his family are fine.
But the last few years, I feel like I’ve been informed of more deaths, attended more funerals, written more eulogies, and sent more condolence cards than in any period that came before. Among the living, we’ve learned of illnesses afflicting extended family and friends, and pray they are terminal only to the extent we all are.
At my age, this is all to be expected. My wife’s father died three years ago, and her “second mother” departed last month. With disconcerting regularity, co-workers and friends mourn parents, siblings, spouses and…in a few particularly awful instances…kids.
Obviously, my father-in-law was a significant loss, and leaves a gap that will never close. We continue to grieve for him, and to some extent always will.
But when friends suffer loss, our task is not as clear. Our actions are less likely to partake of their grief (which can seem contrived and, in any event, may be impossible) than to support them thru it. The result is often formulaic and trite, but the effort is usually appreciated.
Part of the problem is that we don’t know exactly what the afflicted are feeling, or the exact nature of their suffering. But that’s OK. For the most part, they don’t either. And they don’t need (or want) us to tell them.
Besides, the process varies for everyone, and changes over time, albeit at different rates for each person. To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy people smile in similar fashion, but mournful ones grieve in their own way.
It’s usually enough for our friends to know that, like a lifeguard surveying a stormy sea, we are there…even if (perhaps especially if) we don’t say anything at all. They may need to soak in their grief. We should simply make ourselves available to ensure they don’t drown.
If You Want the Love, You Have to Have the Pain
CS Lewis made this point in his poignant account, “A Grief Observed”, of his emotional and philosophical struggles after the death of his wife. He said he felt like an invisible blanket had risen between him and the world.
He dreaded his empty house, and wanted others around. He just preferred they talk to one another instead of to him.
Lewis, one of the great Christian apologists of the 20th century, confessed to fearing not that he’d realize God didn’t really exist, but that he’d learn what God was really like.
His initial impressions, in the wake of his wife’s death, startled and unnerved him. “I turn to God when I really need him, and what do I find? A door slammed in my face. The sound of bolting and double-bolting. After that…silence.”
Had Lewis been worshiping a fair-weather deity? Like a fickle friend, would He be there only for the good times, but vanish when things got rough? Would He join you for drinks at the bar, then slip out the back once a fight broke out?
To Lewis…a lifelong bachelor who had finally been granted true love, only to have it suddenly taken away…that’s the way it seemed. He was asking God for help, or at least an explanation. But he received no answer.
Lewis, during his grief, asked his brother, “If you were God and you had created man and woman, what would you do? Let them love each other, and then lose each other? Or keep them safe from both the love and the pain?”
“I’d let them choose for themselves.”
Lewis agreed, and expressed no regret on his choice. But he then continued, “It doesn’t seem fair does it? If you want the love, you have to have the pain.”
Lewis described his grief as a feeling of fear, or suspense. It was like waiting around for things, none of which were worth starting. Everything was “permanently provisional”. Emptiness was everywhere. Nothing mattered.
Grieving for Themselves
Many I’ve read or talked to have felt the same way the last few years. They may not have lost a loved one, but they lost direction. Uncertainty abounded. Prior plans were suspended. And they had no idea when, or whether, they’d resume. It’s almost as if they grieved for themselves.
Their world become unremarkable and bland. A sense of drift and pointlessness slowly settled upon them, like the first dusts of snow that gradually cover a once colorful garden.
What will remain when it melts? Anything? That was the question so many people asked. Many still do.
As Lewis put it, will there come a time when we no longer wonder why the world has become what it is, because we come to accept squalor and turpitude as normal? Or are we already there?
Among Lewis’s chief laments was that happiness didn’t come to his wife till late in her life. Then, at long last, she had it all…her “palate filled the joys of sense and intellect, and spirit was fresh and unspoiled”. She was finally in position to savor what life had to offer. But, just as she began to take a bite, “the food was snatched away”.
The Pain Passes
Before long, Lewis, a man of faith who had been so instrumental instilling or reinforcing that of others, started to receive reassurance. Like Jefferson, he began to get answers that, while perhaps not wholly fulfilling, were at least somewhat satisfying.
It occurred to him that to receive more, he had to grab less. That he couldn’t see anything when his eyes were blurred with tears. Like a drowning man who sinks if he clutches too hard, or one who cries so loud he silences the voice he hopes to hear.
Lewis slowly understood that we never “get over” severe loss, much as an amputee never fully recovers a lost leg. Sharp pain of the initial separation would eventually dissipate, and the stump would slowly heal.
The amputee could then continue to function. But he’d never be the same. He’d have periodic pangs when he saw, tried, or returned to certain things. He’d get on with life, perhaps with a crutch or a wooden leg.
But he’d never again be a biped. And to get where he wanted to go, he’d have to go to God, not thru Him.
We expect grief to pass. But the transition probably won’t be striking or sudden, like flipping a calendar or saying a prayer. Rather, as Lewis said, it will be like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight.
By the time you notice, it will already have been underway for some time.
JD
JD, giving voice about grief, as you've done, is in itself a coping mechanism. I would qualify that thought in comparison to Blessings (some-what antithetical but hear me out). While one might want to bless another, it is the act - or practice if you will - that provides the environment for God to Bless the intended and then Bless the giver.
Much truth shared today here by you that help we readers, like a God-Glorifying blessing, is aided by being available for necessary work to be done with and through us. Like most share, I've my own experiences that much written of here was experienced.
I guess I'll just leave you and your readers with a simple truth I try to keep foremost: God 1st. My personal most successful method seeking this begins, continues and resolves in Prayer.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts today. Whether intended by you or not, they Blessed me. What I believe to be one of those 'Conundrum's of God' things is Blessings never are one way and I pray you are Blessed richly as well. You've provided the environment for which I am grateful. (WrH)
thanks so much J.D. I've been meaning to read Grief Observed and the Lord willing I will. Still hole after three years.....