Diary of Grief

One Week: The Way Through

The only way out is the way through. --Howard Neberov.

Herding everybody out to the mini van this morning for church, C says, So it was a week ago today you heard the news about Steven, wasn’t it? I make a heavy sigh as I answer: It was. I can hardly believe it’s only been a week, when the news feels as fresh as hours. When, if, and how the grief gets better I don’t know. My friend, C, who lost her mother to MS recently, says, Time being a healer sure made for a lovely Eva Cassidy song, but hasn’t been true for her. Another of my friends, K, who lost her dad to brain cancer last year, says she still cries on the way home from work. I think that loss is loss; that there is no way to reframe it into something that feels better; no way of reshaping it into something that makes sense. It is one of the more painful mysteries of life. I’ve tried to create scenarios in my head, in which Steven has not really died, like instead, I have just awakened from a bad dream. But I return with regret to the reality that Steven is really gone. I agree with Neberov when he says, The only way out is the way through. But the way through is agony.

I don’t even know if the wounds that emerge in loss are meant to be healed. When a person leaves a hole in your life, the hole remains – does it not? The uniqueness of each person in our lives is just that: unique; there is no replacing him/her. But do we find healing balms that will soothe our wounds? Do we find the strength to survive? Do we find grace? And hope? Are we able to experience joy again, even in the midst of such deep sorrow? I think all of these things are possible, but the when and how of it remains an enigma to me. I marvel at people who endure loss – parents who outlive their children, in particular; I’m in awe by the way they merely survive. Steven’s family, and all people of loss, are my new heroes; but not because they want to be, or chose to be. I am humbled by their will to carry on. And I wish them every strength and grace in doing so.

Entering the sanctuary on this Sunday, my priest seeks me out with one of her famous hugs; I contacted her with the news about Steven earlier in the week. Underneath her heavy, white vestments is a heart ablaze with love. I am comforted; and don’t want to let go. And for a long moment, I don’t. For a long moment, the universe of pain stops, and it’s like coming up for air.

In the pew, I fix my eyes on the circle of stained glass above the altar. Each week, I watch the white morning light pour in through the glass, illuminating the pieced together shapes of glass and their vibrant colors. Here is where I come to piece together the shapes of myself, and my life, where I hold onto the hope that the pieces, however irregular, can still come together and form something beautiful – like the stained glass. Here in the pews of Holy Cross Episcopal Church, where I have brought every worry, every concern, every burden for the past two years, I sit with the incomprehensible loss of Steven’s life. I bring here my questions, my anger, my deep and consuming sadness. Here, in the house of my spirit, the tears fall freely. I let my chest rise and fall as it will. I cry openly.

My grandmother has always said that God puts our tears in a bottle, that somewhere in the scriptures it says so. I try to imagine the number of bottles it will take to empty my grief, the grief of Steven’s family, and all those who knew and loved him…I imagine a thousand mason jars, filled with tears, lining a window sill that stretches across the entire universe…the sill between eternity and now.