What does end stage grief look like?

We inevitably read our own grief process into another’s grief process because the only eyes we have are the eyes that we have.  It can seem impossible for us to imagine a person battling with something we don’t battle with, just as it can seem impossible for us to imagine a person enjoying a sense of peace when we find it unimaginable.

Of course, empathy helps us enquire curiously into the void.  Where we don’t understand, we can simply question and wonder what it is like for the other person.  And a journey can begin to unfold of curiously finding our way to destinations others have been to or arrived at.

In recent times, our family has lost our matriarch, a dear and cherished wife, our mother, our grandmother, our great grandmother, our sister, our aunt, our dear friend.  For me and my family, personally, we also approach at this time the anniversary of the loss of our dear Nathanael Marcus, who was lost to us through stillbirth on October 30, 2014.

Many people I know feel very sad for us, but the place Sarah and I are in, and have been in for many, many years, is a place of what I term end stage grief.

Just like there is end stage kidney failure, or end stage heart failure — and just like there would be an end stage to any process — I find there is an end stage to grief.

What does this end stage look like?

It looks like peace, but it also looks like continual facing.  We face the loss of Nathanael, and of Mum, in the same sorts of ways.  We are at peace.  But also their presence is continually on our minds.  We carry them with us.  Not one moment over the last six weeks has Mum’s presence left me in terms of my conscious thinking.  She is always there, but this — what I call remembrance — does not cause me any pain.  And it’s the same with Nathanael.

When it comes to healing, we all have our own thoughts and perceptions about what this concept means.  In terms of the present context, without question with both Nathanael and Mum we feel as healed as anyone can get in this life.  If there are any prayers that go our way, they are best prayers of praise and thanksgiving, for the purity of remembrance in loss.

Such a purity comes when losses are faced and never denied, where the process of grieving is honoured at every stage, where tears are shed when they need to be, wherever we are, no matter who we’re with, and when we finally accept that we are happy to carry the memory with us continually in our minds, because it is no longer painful.

I’m so blessed to be married to a woman who grieves like I do, who just never denies, who never deflects, but also never dwells on an issue longer than it needs.  All throughout the season of losing Nathanael, for the four months of waiting knowing he wouldn’t survive, there were times of intense sorrow, but not hours nor days, yet there were hard days and easier ones.  We cried, moaned, and wailed when we needed to.

In end stage grief, we are connected with a world that grieves, and this is the point of grieving, that we might empathise with the grieving of others, and thereby be of use even as we are healed of our grieving, even if that looks like we bear our remembrances continually yet peacefully.

Love costs to the degree that precious losses need to be carried.

In being connected with a grieving world, God has connected us with a truth we may not have previously seen, or that previously didn’t have our attention.

In end stage grief, we carry our remembrances peacefully, bearing the occasional shards of pain, knowing that “these, too, shall pass,” and knowing with a gentle smile that the best is yet to come.