Grieving

I believe that this time in history is a time to Grieve or Mourn. Unfortunately, in my opinion, our culture doesn’t allow for people to Grieve. My time in college is when I was introduced to mourning. Sure, growing up I had a dog die and I was very sad and cried. However, it was nothing compared to my time in college and beyond.

Starting my sophomore year through my senior year (remember I squeezed 4 years into 5 years) of college there was at least one death per semester. That is a minimum of 8 people. Also, during that time my grandpa died. After I graduated, I started a non-profit that walked alongside youth who are homeless. I worked there for over 20 years and on the average 1 youth died every year and many of those deaths where a result of violence. All of this I took in stride and figured that it was just a part of life. However, in 2009 a young man who came to the organization where I worked all the time died suddenly. This one was different for me. He was taking steps to exit street life when suddenly he was gone. It wrecked me. All the previous undealt grief and loss, which I thought I was taking in stride but was actually stuffing all those emotions deep into my soul, came flooding into every ounce of my being. I felt buried and in total darkness. I started counseling and I made a lot of progress. Then a couple of years later my mom died and the darkness appeared again and for the next four years I was numb. Literally, my head felt like it was in the clouds and I could not think straight.

After the young man’s death in 2009 I have been in either counseling or spiritual direction. With the help of my counselor and spiritual director I have learned to integrate the grief into my life. I learned a lot during that time. One thing I learned is to give myself permission to grieve. It is ok to feel the things I am feeling. Second is that the grieving process is not a straight line. I found myself bouncing around from stage to stage. Finally, mourning is a lifelong procedure. Even years later, when you think everything is fine, it will hit out of nowhere. In other words, it hits like a tone of bricks, you bounce around from stage to stage for a while and learn to integrate the pain, and then when you think it has all been integrated it comes back out of nowhere. Finally, I firmly believe that God is working deep in our souls when the darkness returns. So be gracious with yourself. You are not alone; God is holding your heart in the psalms of His hands grieving with you.

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