on grief

in an attempt to show that my world is not all-consumed by disney and hello kitty (okay, it's also consumed by tv and pinterest) i will blog a few thoughts.

in an effort to enroll in a class that didn't have the words "grant" or "writing" in it, i found a last minute slot into the super attractive "grief and bereavement" elective.  best. decision. ever.

although i have never lost anyone closetomyheart close to me, that inner sanctum of best friends and family, i feel i have been through my own mini toy meat grinder of grief.  i can't talk or think about death and grief and loss without thinking of A, Mrs. Lan, Mrs. B.  Or my friends who have lost their hearts' dearest.

last week a friend was grieving.  it wasn't a deathloss, but it was such poignant, gut-wrenching, soul-spilling grief that there was nothing i could do but to sit and grieve that my friend was grieving.  what do you do when someone loses so much?

in class i sit and listen to story after story of my professor and my colleagues and case studies of faceless people, person after person who come face to face with grief and loss.  some knowingly surround themselves because their hearts are so big and empathy so wide that they can take it.  just barely.  and others just shatter because when are you really prepared, truly ready?

tuesday, i'm sitting in class, and she's reading about how when you lose someone and you have to learn to move on, you eventually do it, and it's learning how to live without that person in that world you inhabit.  like the spaces in between the next time you'll see that dear face again.  you'll go to that store you two were in together and you'll pick up a sweater and you'll think, oh, she'll really love that.  or you'll hear a song on the radio and you remember the time that he used to quiz you on the composer, and when you didn't know the answer so you countered with, "oh yah, do you know who it is?" he says, all knowingly, "of course i do," and then won't tell you.  or you'll think of or see something super awesome/cool/weird/disgusting/upsetting and you're itching and forcing yourself to remember to mention it to that person next time you see them.  and that quick, lethal slice as it dawns on you that the person won't be there at all. and as i sit there and think about a world in which i'll have to do that, think of you in the spaces in between and realize that the space is going to be eternity-wide, i start to sob.

i guess on a certain level, i'm a bit of a masochist.  i will intentionally sit there and think about how i'll hold up at my parents' funerals, if the Lord calls them home, or what i'll do if i lose that friend or this, and just grieve.  and now i'm taking a class, dedicating a whole semester, to sit there and think some more.

at the end of this post, i feel i have no unifying point or purpose in writing this, except this grief, the mourning of the world to come, has been a little bit too much to leave inside.  i'm learning to press into the sorrow, learning to hold my grief and all the other people's grief.  it's a really difficult thing.  mostly because i think i'm so afraid of the intensity of my emotions that my body may make me try to shut down.

last thought: my grandpa is 90 this year.  i don't know how much longer we'll have with him.  one of the most important memories involving him is me, a few years ago, crying in my room, sobbing because i had had three weeks with him and couldn't get up the nerve to tell him jesus loves him.  and then i went and told him, thank God for that chance, though no fruit.  now he's 90, and 75% deaf, and 7195 miles away.  i want one, two, a lifetime more chances to tell him how much jesus loves him.  because i can't begin to imagine the despair i'll feel if he doesn't knowinthegut know that.