A Grief Delayed

On the way back from Seattle in June 2010, I visited my mom. She lives in Detroit and wanted me to help her finalize funeral arrangements—her funeral arrangements. The idea of meeting with my mom, who is very much alive, in the building where she’d be embalmed, laid out in a coffin, then stared at while being very much dead, was not a pleasant experience. The quietness of the funeral home amplified the reality that death is real, life is short, time and youth are fleeting, and that someday all of us will meet God one way or the other.

The process was fairly simple, we chose the funeral arrangements—including the coffin (the word coffin is a euphemism for the box they put you in when you die), then she gave them a check, and we left. It was uncomfortable as it was, but the whole thing turned surreal when, shortly thereafter, my mother asked me to do her funeral. I wish I could say that my mom and I had a close relationship. That is not entirely true. But the idea of doing her funeral just boggles my mind. I’m numb to it. Even as I type these words, I don’t feel what I know will be the emotional weight of this task when it finally becomes a reality. I’ve already begun to work on it including asking my mother what she wants said. I figure if I get a jump on it now, I’ll be able to go through with it when I have to because it will already be done.

The whole experience has made me think. But I can assure you it’s a “grief delayed.” Whenever there is loss or even the potential for loss of any kind you have grief. No one wants to grieve. Grief reminds us of reality. Some of us deny reality, deny the loss, deny the pain, but all that does is seal us alive in the tomb of our unrealized expectations and hopes. We live in the past or in an allusion or worse yet, we live in denial of what is often apparent to others and reality in the future. So how do I process grief and loss? Here’s a couple of thoughts from my Christian worldview.

First, as a follower of Christ, I cry out to God bringing the core of my pain to him. The writer of Psalm 137 said as much when he screamed, “Remember, O Lord… (Psalm 137:7).” I let God in on my grief! Second, I embrace my grief rather than run from it. Grief, while difficult, is a reminder that life is not as it should be. Someday, in the end, at the consummation of God’s Kingdom, all sorrow and tears will be done away. Until that time, I must look forward to my redemption with the deep groaning of grief (Psalm 137:1). Finally, I find my hope in God and the revelation of his Son Jesus. Jesus came, not to take away my grief, but to bear the burden of what caused it in the first place. Jesus work on the cross doesn’t change the reality that we’ll all feel loss, but it does change the reality that we’ll have to experience it forever. There is hope. That hope is not found in the revenge I may want to take out on those whose actions cause me to grieve. The writer of Psalm 137, who rightfully wanted justice, did not see that the way God dealt with justice was not by dashing the sons of the Babylonians against rocks but by dashing his own Son on the rock of Golgatha (Psalm 137:8-9).

Change in life is inevitable and with that change comes grief and loss and sadness and sorrow and anger and confusion. But for me, as a follower of Jesus, I have to learn to see that in every experience of grief there is the seed of reality and the seed of hope. I do not have to live the deluded life of our modern world’s obsession with self and things. If I take my faith seriously, I have the hope of a new life tomorrow with the equal possibility of a changed life today. That alone should make anyone at least consider whether or not Christianity is real because, in the end, we all are going to face death in others in in ourselves. It’s a grief delayed.