Memories

I went from “Busyness” to a room called “Memories” where photo albums covered the floor. The Way We Were played over and over on the plasma screen. So real. I relived every scene.

In my journal after Steve’s death I wrote about my compulsion to not only remember him, but to study the memory. I had to know what had made me feel more whole, for it could not be that I was here and my soulmate was not. "Memories" made it easy to talk to Steve, to acquaint him with all our dailies. For the longest time I tried to keep him current.

The movies numbed my pain, and the memories gave perspective, but in the end no one reached from the screen to dry my tears.

Busyness

I understood the temptation. It would have been easy to get stuck in Busyness. But only part of my healing could take place there. If I didn’t travel to the other rooms of the Grief Mansion I would never be able to get out.

Bills and Wills

Grief is the process we grow through when we experience a loss. I experienced grief not as a series of stages such as Kubler-Ross wrote about, but as though I was the captive of a creaky house with many rooms.

The first Grief Mansion room that I found myself in was called “Busyness.” Here papers mounded high on desks with unseen tops. I was not prepared for the avalanche of paper work that followed Steve’s death. I couldn’t avoid it. Bills, wills, and certificates of death. There seemed to be no end. Busyness gave me purpose and focus in the midst of confusion. In a strange way, it dulled some of the pain.

I observed that men in grief especially love this room. “How’s Larry doing?” “He’s staying busy.” I watched a grieving neighbor cope with his daughter’s tragic death by pouring himself into months and months of major house projects. “Busyness” looks good from the outside. In our culture, the average person expects you to be over it in about six weeks.

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love," from Zephaniah 3:17

Grief Mansion

Grief is the process we grow through when we experience a loss. I experienced grief not as a series of stages such as Kubler-Ross wrote about, but as though I was the captive of a creaky house with many rooms. When I found a window, I could see that the rest of life continued, as usual, outside of the Grief Mansion. I longed to be there, in the sun again, away from my pain. The only way out was to feel my way down the maze of dark hallways, visiting room after room of this Grief Mansion. Each room became a place where God’s healing occurred.

This blog will explore issues related to death, dying and grief. The way through the mansion may at first seem obscure, but there is hope.