DEFINING MOMENTS

GRIEF: Intense mental anguish; deep remorse; acute sorrow

ME, AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS JOURNEY : Grief stricken


An aunt died this past June. I attended her funeral and watched her children, grandchildren, sibling, etc. grieve. Without a doubt their feelings were intense, deep, and acute, with only time to help them subside. They will always remember her, they will always miss her, and they will always cling to the hope of seeing her again.

At the beginning of my journey and for a very long time afterward, I was grief stricken. It was an eruption that was more apparent and lasted longer than any other feeling or emotion I had ever experienced. I felt the intense mental anguish, the deep remorse, and the acute sorrow and could not understand why. I knew it had to match the feelings of loosing a child to death, but I had not, so why? Why was I grief stricken?

It all made sense to me when I finally learned why, and that my feelings were perfectly normal. In a way, I had lost something. I had lost an entire lifetime of longings, desires, and dreams that only a mother could have for her daughter. And now they lay before me folded like a piece of paper jammed in a copy machine, accordion-like!

In time, thankfully, my feelings of grief became less and less intense, deep, and acute, but as far as my longings, desires and dreams for her: They will always be remembered, they will always be missed, and they will always be hoped for.



PEACE: A calm and quite state

ME, AT THE PRESENT TIME: Peaceful

There are people in our lives that we chose not to share our situation with and they never saw me grieve. There are those who knew, but never saw me grieve. There are actually only a very few who ever saw and truly felt my pain. It occurred to me one day that if those who never saw me grieve learned of the situation right now, they may possibly mistake the peace in my life for acceptance.

The journey between grief stricken and peacefulness has been long and turbulent, and I no longer have an acceptance of the situation than on day one. God has given me an unexplainable calm and quite state that I did not understand in the beginning. I felt guilty for not crying, for not feeling stirred, or for feeling nothing at all. From time to time, the grief resurfaces. Thankfully it does not stay around long, but I have learned to accept it as a time to step up my prayers for my daughter. It is during these times that I feel vulnerable and closer to God as He comforts me through it.

I have also come to accept that it is during the calm and quite times that God is carrying my load and I am reminded once again that His yoke is easy and His burden light.