One of the worst experiences of life is surely losing a loved one. It seems so obvious to say it. But what if we commence a quest of knowing our lost loved ones more indeed after they leave us?
I think it’s a cosmic truth for all of us to discover — who our loved one really was. Of course, we can know them so well. But, like it is to truly know ourselves, there is always an enigmatic, unknowable part of each of us.
I know two vivid losses in my own case, in both situations it was only after each had perished that I was taken into the spiritual reality of a deeper knowledge of both.
Yes, this is very much a spiritual experience — just as that is all that is left when our loved ones have died. It is a healing reality for us to grieve well in remembering them rather than bypassing the pain by thinking of anything but them.
When we lost Mum, suddenly we gained such insight with all her possessions at our grasp — photos, notes, nicknacks, planning her funeral, even voicemails we thought nothing of previously. Every little possession we clung to. And in trying hard to not forget her, I know I at least embarked on a 12-18 month journey of keeping her close to me. Nearly four years later, I feel at complete peace that I processed my grief well.
Earlier, when we lost Nathanael in 2014, holding him in our arms was the kind of ‘closure’ (if there is such a thing) that we needed. We recorded a lot of videos and photos with him, so it is easy to go back and remember him. We couldn’t have really ‘known’ him as he was stillborn, but we felt we knew his character in the womb, and we also let our imaginations run free — knowing with absolute peace that we will go to him in heaven one day.
When I experienced my first real loss — the loss of my first marriage — I felt I was able to say goodbye to that version of myself as I embraced a new identity with being a loving single Dad, a committed member of AA, really ‘getting’ Christ, becoming a servant leader in the church, and importantly, without the alcohol and the ambition that pushed the old life to the edges of the end.
I embraced what was the most painful of losses because it was the loss of my life partner, everyday access to my children, my home, and eventually my job (which involved too much travel). I embraced these losses because — between bouts of depression and panic attacks — I was determined to heal and become who I’d always wanted to be; who I was called by God to become.
These losses were more about mourning the old me. In embracing the new me, I actually got to know the old me very well. Hence I felt like I could let go; and so well did I let go, I love going back to the memories and reminisces of the past.
It’s counterintuitive to run toward a hazard or danger. I’m sure we view grief as too dangerous, too risky, to run toward. So we may be tempted to bypass it or to run from it or to deny it or busy ourselves.
This is the importance of a spirituality that can accommodate loss and grief — and even to risk being broken open by the visceral emotions incumbent of the season. To make and hold space for pain.
There is wisdom in allowing grief to take us into the truth of its pain. What may not sound palatable at all may actually heal us purest and quickest over all.
When we trust such a process we stand at the gates of God’s promises to prove good through it all.
If only we can allow our grief to redefine us, we trust God in the process of reforming us according to the truth of who or what we have lost. What could be more important?
I think this is more important than pretending we are some other version of ourselves, especially where we think we must conform to a rule of how others define we should be.
Yes, it takes courage to live this way — better put, I think, it is living by faith. I love the truth, “who dares wins.”
