Checking Off Grief

“Crying may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”   Psalm 30:5

I write a “Things To Do” list most days.  It always feels good to cross something off my list especially things I will not need to do again.  I feel a sense of accomplishment and my day has purpose when I mark things off the list.  Some of the “things to do” are routine like “do laundry” but other things like “write the talk for my Lenten Lunch Speech” are just a onetime event.

In grief, we wish a checklist could be followed.  We could go through an emotion or feeling and be done with it and never revisit it again.  We could mark it off the list and feel our day was productive and we were moving forward.  There never seems to be a completion to the grief and the emotions surrounding it.

I have been pondering my own grief especially my journey over the past seven years.  The loneliness and intense sadness were overwhelming in the first part of my grief.  I kept busy with work but felt empty because I did not have my person who made life fulfilling and complete.  The grief for my mom was more intense because I did not have her for support.  I had to figure out who I was now.  Relationships felt empty.  Then I tried something that did not bring fulfillment.  I felt like I checked that off my list.  I tried, and it was not what I wanted or needed so it never needed to be on the list again.

While we would like to check off grief and all the emotions and feelings that come with it, and not have to walk through it again, that is not how grief works.  We grieve each relationship and who we were in that relationship.  We experience different emotions at different steps on the journey.  Sometimes, those feelings come back and we revisit them over and over again, and sometimes we work through them.  We may come to an acceptance of the reality of life.  We cannot rush through nor deny the grief, but also do not need to stay stuck in the grief.

If we begin to use the checklist as a marker for growth and taking steps of living, we sometimes feel we are leaving behind our loved one.  That is why we stay in the past memories and grief.  It is familiar and comfortable remembering but it is also empty and unfulfilling.  We do not accomplish anything but exist in the pain and heartache.  We will always remember and tell the stories.  We are who we are because we walked the journey of life with our loved one.  They are part of the foundation of our life.  We lived because of them and can live because of them now.

I have begun to see our grief list not so much as completion of the past, but as things to attempt and try on this journey of life we now have.  It is not so much a bucket list, but a living not existing list.  How can I live today?  What can I do to live in a moment today where pain and loss are not central?  It is recognizing who you are in other relationships.  I recognized I was still an Aunt, still a sister, still a cousin, still a friend, still a counselor.  While I am different because of loss, and I interact differently, I still have these relationships.  So my checklist became how can I live in these relationships?

God has walked with us in the deep grief and crying, and God knows we will have moments of these emotions throughout our lives.  God also gives to us joy.  Joy does not mean everything in life is now perfect and good.  Joy is an inner peace and contentment in the midst of the trials and troubles of life.  Joy is our reliance on God to bring good out of the bad and to find moments of joy in the pain and sorrow.