Grieving Into Hope

“But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.”  Romans 8:25

My niece texted me and asked for my Grandma’s Pineapple cookie recipe.  Immediately, I could smell and taste those delicious morsels, and they always had her special touch – her homemade glaze.  The day was beautiful with a blue sky and white fluffy clouds as we walked the park.  I gazed into the sky and the cloud above me looked like a dog lying on its back with its feet in the air, and I thought of my mom and how she taught me to look for shapes in the clouds.  I read the obituary of a Sturtz cousin and felt her love and the legacy she passed on to everyone she touched.  She made a difference in this world. 

All of these memories filled me with hope and made me smile.  While I miss my mom and Grandma, I no longer feel the deep pain of loss and grief.  When I think of them, I feel their love and recognize their influence and the foundation of my life that is built on their faith and love.  The legacy of their lives is reflected in my life.  Their lives have given me hope.

In the journey of grief, we have moments we lift ourselves out of the depth of sorrow and loneliness and revealed to us is a hope of a hope.  The cloudiness of grief parts for a moment and we see a possibility of hope.  We may not feel hopeful at that moment, but we know someday hope will come into our life.  Someday we will look forward to living moments with meaning and purpose.

As the journey continues, we deal with the stuff of life and our loved one’s possessions.  We may create a memory box of little treasures from our loved one’s life.  These mementos remind us they lived, and we experienced life with them.  We also have an emotional memory box filled with so many feelings.  These come out of the box at times from the triggers of life.  This box is filled with layers of sadness, the past, grief and lined with loneliness.  It is a box we live in for a period of time.  The box has no hope.  It just pulls us into a deep longing for the past.  It creates an emptiness within us.  All the emotions in the box define the intensity of grief.  The emotional box defines us for a period of time.  It is familiar and how we believe we keep our loved one alive within us.  We stay stuck here and exist as if this is all there is to life.

Then we get a glimpse of a moment of hope – a moment where we see life could be different.  That hope of a hope emerges as we attempt to go through grief and leave it in the past.  But how do we get through the darkness and depth of grief and experience light and hope?

For me, the only way has been to walk closer to God each day.  It is trusting God is with me even when I do not feel His presence.  It is believing God is comforting me, giving me rest, and re-focusing my life.  It is beginning to take steps into living.  It is seeing that life can be different and still have meaning and purpose.  It is releasing my husband to live in Heaven and closing the emotional box of pain.  I know there will be moments of emotion the rest of my life, and the box will be opened but just for moments.  I no longer exist in the past but live in the present with hope.  It is finding who I am now.  I am further down the path of life because of those I have loved who have influenced and poured into me.

I am beginning to comprehend that the opposite of deep grief is hope.  Hope is looking forward to something I expect to happen.  I now expect God to walk with me each day and help me live in the present.  Life is different.  I do not need to stay in the intensity of grief and despair.  I am not betraying my loved one.  I am acknowledging a completion of life and a change in location to Heaven for my loved one.  I am getting out of the emotional box of grief and focusing on the hope of life.