Posts Tagged ‘grief’
Grieving with kids is a complicated business. Mandy and I, as we continue to live with grief, have the ability to look at each other and see if this is a down day, or if someone is just running a little low. We can talk. We can pray.
But kids are different sometimes.
And this week it’s been like something has just hit our kids. We always talk about Malachi and Hope. They are part of a our family and so they enter our conversation regularly. But this week our kids have been talking specifically about missing them a lot.
We have these two special bears that we got for each of them at the hospital. The kids call the bears Malachi and Hope (very sweet and sad). Well they go through phases of getting obsessed with them, and recently they found them and started wanting to sleep holding them. (How sad is that!)
And then, the past three nights, one of our kids has started crying uncontrollably about missing them. This is really unique. I mean, there have been tears shed, but it has honestly been a while since the kids have cried. And now out of nowhere, the floodgates are opening.
I think maybe it has something to do with the arrival of Eden. I mean experiencing what they are missing with the other two may just be hitting them like never before. Eden has brought so much joy and life to our house. She is a ray of sunshine, literally, shining everywhere she goes. But what is very real and apparent to us (as it was before we were blessed with Eden) is that Eden does not replace in any way Malachi and Hope.
And so, while we are comforted and blessed by Eden, we are also sadly reminded of the babies we have not had the chance to do all these special things with. Every day.
So we are living in the bittersweet right now. And I think we probably always will.
If you think of it, pray for the little ones in our house. They are carrying burdens that no child should ever have to carry. And it is so sad as a parent to watch them try to work through the very big concepts of death, heaven, life, and grief.
Praise God for his continued faithfulness to our family. May he be ever closer!
Tomorrow I’m going to be teaching at church. Often in my teachings I feel inspired to share pieces of the story of my life—and sometimes that will include the story of Malachi and Hope. I love talking about them to people. Early on Mandy and I both felt that their stories would be a testimony to God, and used to touch many people’s lives.
However, there is another side of this issue that I really struggle with. Basically, how much is too much? There are places in my heart, places so deep and precious and painful, that only a few have been allowed to enter. They are sacred places. Places I can go and be. Memories. Snapshots in time. These are holy ground in my heart. They make me feel close to Malachi and Hope on a very deep level. Many of these memories I can only talk about with Mandy.
One time last summer while trying to help someone I shared too much. I talked openly about some of the deepest detailed memories of those times. And it was a bad idea. It sent me into an emotional tailspin for the rest of the day and night, until I finally fell the ground and realized I had allowed someone onto that holy ground that wasn’t supposed to be there. At least not yet. Maybe someday all of these memories will be “open” to others, but right now they aren’t.
So I struggle. I wonder, how much is too much to share? And I also struggle because I want my motives to be pure. I’m not an idiot. I know when I share these stories they will move people deeply. In other words, I know they will be good material for my teaching. And that disgusts me on some level.
I don’t ever want the stories and lives of Malachi and Hope to become “good material.” You know what I mean?
So I struggle. I really do. I’m pulled between wanting to honor their memories through sacred silence, and wanting to honor them through the power of testimony that can change people’s lives.
Tomorrow I’m going to share something I’ve never shared with the church before. A part of my heart. It’s real. And I think I’ll be ok. It’s certainly not the deepest parts. And I really think that the deepest parts would be inappropriate to share with such a large audience. But it is a deep enough part that just planning to use it caused me to spend some time crying tonight. I hadn’t visited that specific “place” in a while.
So I …. struggle :)
I miss them. I really do. It still amazes me how deeply I can miss two people I never had the chance to “know” in the way we think we know people. However, I also feel that I know them on levels that are so deep that they transcend words and shared experiences. And the promise of God is that someday we will be fully known. And that excites me – to fully know them both.
It is so cool, something I never would have expected, is that I have intense fatherly pride for them. I have that for my four living children, but I didn’t know what I would feel or experience with Malachi and Hope. But I really do have pride for them. I am so proud of how their testimony has already touched so many lives so deeply. I know it has.
And tomorrow I pray that as I allow others to tread some sacred paths of mine, that their testimony will indeed touch lives again.
“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
C. S. Lewis “Screwtape Letters”
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately with a lifelong friend of mine named Jessica. I have known her since she was 9 and I was 12, and what’s crazy is, that doesn’t seem like that long ago! She has always been a person who has seen the fullness of color in life. Lately though, the colors of her life have turned to so many shades of grey. And I’ve seen my friend go from zestfully loving life, to just walking out one day at a time.
As we have been talking, even though our situations are radically different, I’ve been reminded of the pain that Mandy and I have walked through the last several years. It’s funny—when you suffer in tragic ways, it’s almost like you join this really sad club. Weepers R Us, or Pain-a-holics Annoymous. And you all wear shirts that say, Life is HARD instead of Life is GOOD. Yeah, I’ve been to those meetings.
Anyway, I was thinking about pain, and life, and all this—and I remembered this quote from one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books. It’s about a veteran demon who is training a novice demon on how to make Christians stop believing in God. And in this one section he talks about how God (the Enemy in his language) will sometimes stand off from us so that we will learn to run to him. And then he talks about how annoyed he gets at the human, when the human, inspite of all the bad that is swirling around him, and the distance of God away from him, will still choose to follow.
I can remember in the midst of some of the darkest days after Hope passed away saying to Mandy that I didn’t want to lose my faith. I didn’t understand God, I couldn’t feel God’s presence, and I even was harboring some serious resentment and anger towards him. But at the same time I knew that I did not want to be the person who walks away when the going gets rough. So I made a choice. And so did Mandy. And so is my friend Jessica. And so can we all (too preachy?).
But really, I mean it! No matter what happens around us, we still have the power to choose. The power of choice. I choose this and not that. I choose life and not death. I choose faith and not fear. I choose love and not hate.
Now granted, these are not easy choices. They were not easy choices for me to make. And I learned that I often had to make them every day—little decisions over and over again that eventually would add up to something bigger. And as I survey the landscape of life around me, and all the hurting people I know right now, I just get this sense that those who make good choices now—choices to walk toward God and not away—will find the restoration of hope that one day will come.
As I look back into the darkest times of grief that Mandy and I shared, I realize that not only did I not lose myself, but in many ways I found myself more powerfully than ever before. And this is just true. The dark hour, the shadow of death, the valley of decision—these are all terrible times that are ripe with potential.
So my prayer for all my friends (and myself) who are struggling now is to make those small choices today that will lead to life in the tomorrows to come.
Ok, so I know I am bordering on being the most depressing blog ever – but I have to write about this. Three years ago, June 28, we had one of the worst storms that we’ve ever had at our “new” house. I remember it so clearly because our power went out, and I went downstairs to check things out. It was raining so hard that it was actually coming in my sliding glass door, something that has never happened before or since.
It was a storm to remember. The next day was the day we found out that Malachi’s heart had stopped. Yesterday was Malachi’s 3rd birthday – three years since we lost our little boy before ever truly getting to know him. Now, what I’m about to write about you might not interpret as I do, but that’s ok.
There was something about that storm. As we awoke to the terrible news of Malachi’s death, the memory of the storm and the results all around the neighborhood, were a physical picture of the devastation in our lives. The rain storm was like a sign from God that he was angry and grieving as we were. It was like a sign from God that he loved Malachi and was grieved at his early death.
After that storm, it didn’t rain at all – not one day – until exactly 1 month after Malachi’s birthday. Then it stormed like crazy. Now, every year for three years on Malachi’s birthday, it has rained. Yesterday, Mandy came to pick me up from work and as we all got in the car to head down to the gravesite, you know what happened….a storm came rolling in. And it poured.
I know it’s hard to believe, but I really feel like there is something in the rain. There is something comforting and powerful about these storms that are so perfectly timed. There is something in the anger of a storm that resonates within me soul. And there is something in the rain that connects me with God’s sadness over all this too.
So anyway – it was a special day as we celebrated our little boy Malachi’s birthday. He has brought such depth and understanding to our lives, and we will forever be changed because of knowing him.
Morbid title I know. I took a course titled this in college. It was good. And we watched a terribly depressing movie on a terribly depressing rainy day in the winter. Jacob’s Ladder I think?
Anyway, I was thinking about death and dying tonight because I watched a House episode that ripped my heart out, tears flying everywhere. As I reflected, I was struck by how often I think about death and dying. And come to think of it, how often I write about it on this blog. So I’m sorry in advance. Really I am.
But I see this blog as a chance for me to be real and write, and just see what comes out. I think it is part of my grieving process.
Anyway, I think a lot about death and dying. It scares me. It makes me sad. It amazes me how many people I’ve become so close to that it’s hard for me to imagine living life without them. Does anyone else think like this?
I feel like my innocence has been robbed—most people don’t think about death like this. When we lost Malachi, my heart was broken. I have love for that little boy like I would never have imagined. When we lost Hope I think the floor of my life literally disappeared and I just fell. I’m not sure where I stand now, but everything has changed.
I can picture the moment now in such vivid memory, as if I am there still, when we found out that Hope’s heart had stopped beating. I’ve talked at length with my therapist about this moment. The way I treat this memory, and the way it has effected me is classic of trauma victims she says. I’ve tried to walk through this memory so many times with her. It’s hard. I can remember the words, “We can’t find the baby’s heart beat” like the world stopped. My memory actually remembers it like an earthquake, or like a record that skipped. It was like time, and my life, just froze and then BAM was forced to start moving again.
That’s the thing about death that really hurts – time doesn’t stop. Time mercilessly keeps going. And going. And going. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how out of control you feel – you still have to wake up. Go to sleep (or try to). Eat something.
In intense grief even those normal things are so hard, but you are forced to do it. And each little decision to do that, brings another. Eventually you have to go back to seeing people, go back to shopping for stuff, go back to work, and slowly the exterior of your life begins to look “normal” but inside all hell has broken loose.
I am aware that I have not experienced the very bottom of the pit of despair. I know what we have been through is awful, and hard to imagine. But there is worse. I know there is. And that scares me too.
So, shall I leave you with these depressing thoughts. that is, if you are still reading?
The truth of it is, sometimes faith and hope are just this – the courage to take one more step. I’ve been there twice now in my life, and I think what scares me is that in all reality, I know I’ll be there again someday. And another thing that scares me, is I don’t know when. You can’t be ready for these things.
So some people would say don’t dwell on them. And that’s wise to an extent. But there’s also wisdom in facing our fears and knowing that somehow, someway, we’d take the next step. That God would not leave us, and that somehow, day by day, His grace would sustain us.
So yeah, that’s me bearing my soul again. Sorry if this doesn’t sound as hopeful as I normally am. Part of what I’m walking out in this life requires me to face this side of me, and try to understand how it fits into who I’m becoming. I know in faith that God is shaping me, and His loving hands are guiding me and protecting me through this all.
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