Consoling the Grieving With Awkwardness and Goodwill

As you probably know, I don't write an advice column.  All of my posts are the fruit of my thought-life and experience, shared for your entertainment or very optimistically, to offer hope or help.   I have very few thoughts I am willing to impose on others as ideal or best-practice.  I generally assume people have already thought about what they are doing or saying and are motivated by their own reasons, in which case advice is neither sought nor appreciated.

However...

I've been in a few situations lately, which have stirred something within me.  I've stayed up late writing about it, only to leave it again, afraid to offend or create scandal.  These situations involve being at someone's side whose world has been turned upside down by the death of someone they love.  I've been there at different stages for different people - during the dying, at the death, at the moment they learned about the death, days and months later.  

I count every one of these moments as a privilege and something sacred.  But, they are uncomfortable.  And yet, what is just as uncomfortable, is finding myself cringing in these same moments.

Not cringing at the love, which manifests itself as pain, tears, and grief in every form, but at what little we have to offer in the way of words.  But, we use them anyway.  And they fail to land in the heart of the hearer.  My fear is not that they do little good, but have the potential to harm.  To create distance.  A feeling of not being understood.

If there is little else, there is always a lot of goodwill in anyone at the side of a grieving person.  It is not an easy place to be.  We are likely struggling with our own grief and trying to help another with theirs.  We struggle to understand why spouses leave widows, children leave parents, parents leave children, and how full-term babies can die on their birth-day.  

We no more understand these things than the man on the moon.  But, if we're Christians, we know God is involved, so we run to the safe-place.  God's will.  It's the only way we can preserve our sanity and our faith.  This is all we have, and consequently, many times, what we offer to the grief-stricken.

In our attempt to console a grieving person, we offer the only comfort we can find for ourselves.  We remind them that the death of the one they loved is "for a reason".  "All part of God's plan".  Or that "God needed him/her more than you did."  Said another way, "All is as it should be."

If the grieving say and believe these things, then by all means, we can readily agree (if we believe them, too).  But, unless we're asked for our opinion, we should let the grieving one take the lead here.  It is hard to receive, "All is as it should be" when every fiber of your being says, "Nothing is as it should be."  

1 Corinthians 2:11 says, "For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him?  So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

We can know God is good.  We can know that He will bring good out of everything, as Romans 8:28 proclaims ("We know that in everything God works for the good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose."), but we cannot know what God is thinking when he commands or allows a person to die.  We would do well to remember this when our turn comes to comfort the grieving.    

When someone is grieving, even a person with great faith, it is very possible that the God they believe in changes.  Maybe forever.  If you believed someone was responsible for causing you greater pain than you ever could have imagined, would it be any immediate consolation that the person responsible thought it out thoroughly ahead of time?    

The box made of our thoughts about God and how we relate to Him shatters.  But, we know God doesn't change.  God is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  We change. Understandably so, and probably for the best.  Ultimately, if we don't abandon faith altogether, we are forced to let God be God and to accept what we cannot know or understand.  An uncomfortable, but properly ordered relationship between creature and Creator.

No one has ever had the nerve to say it to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if amidst their distress, they were thinking, "To hell with God's plan."  The incredible thing is that God's plan did go to hell, as we're told in the Apostle's Creed: https://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/creed2.html.  He made provision for that, too.

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

Even hell or our thoughts of what belong there cannot change Who has been there and rose again. Jesus Christ.   This is our Christian hope.  The hope of the resurrection.  We do not need to know God's thoughts to know history.  

I am not an expert on any of this.  I believe everything we profess in the Creed.  But, I also believe the kindest thing can be to hold off on holding it out as our means to comfort.  Maybe I'm projecting my pain onto the grieving, but my heart hurts for them when their friends and family take away their freedom to express their pain, bewilderment, doubt, or anger with "God's plan".

 I thank God for the faith he has granted to me and the many truths related to it.  But, that doesn't mean they are a source of consolation in every moment, especially when you just want to be held.    

Please know that this post is the fruit of a growing conviction.  I have done and said everything here that I've advised against.  But, until we see God, Face to face, can I challenge you as I challenge myself, to grow more comfortable with your discomfort when consoling the grieving?

Appreciate the power of your presence.  Don't overestimate your need to say the right thing.  They will remember you were there, but probably won't remember what you said.  Stick with what you know.  Need some ideas?  "I love you."  "I'm sorry.  This is really hard."  "I don't know why this happened."  "Lord, increase our faith."  And if pressed, "God is going to bring good.  I don't know when or how, but I believe that He will."

God's plan reveals itself.  It doesn't need our words to herald it in.  Yet, I believe we are a big part of it - showing up in all of our awkwardness and goodwill, day after day.  Our presence, faith, hope, and love are our greatest gifts to the grieving, and other than God himself, the only remedy for suffering.  "The only thing worse than suffering, is suffering alone."  (Unknown source)

Lily and the Puddle

This is our dog, Lily, after our walk today...

This is noteworthy because today was a big day for us.  Lily became my teacher.  

We got Lily at a local animal shelter the day before Easter, approximately six months ago.  She's our Easter Lily.  She has been the source of much joy and consternation.  The $5.00 we paid for her has seemed like $5.00 too much on many, many occasions.  These include repeated peeing on the carpet, getting into the trash and depositing its contents throughout the house, throwing up on various rugs, and some still-unresolved problem with anal gland expression.  I mean, really, it couldn't get any more disgusting.  My boys will eagerly tell you I love her the least of everyone in our family.  They're probably right.  

But, we all have our place with her.  Of the boys, the youngest is her "care taker", she loves to chase and nip at the middle one's calves, and she sleeps on the the bed of the oldest.  My husband trims her nails, bathes her, and has a love/hate relationship with her, as I do, depending on how recently she has offended our sensibilities and desire for order, and neutral smells.  I'm the one who walks her, and she seems to let this one positive aspect drape others less so.  

With a history of acute UPS-truck-related deafness, a proclivity for running, and a curiosity about everything, we've done a lot of cussing in our front yard, trying to give our new-ish canine family member a little freedom out of the house and off the leash.  It's slowly getting better.

So, today was a real experiment, as we ventured to some local trails off-leash, which is allowed, but your dog must be under voice control (underlined just like it says on the sign), at all times.  We were definitely gambling here.  I counted the cars on the way in to the parking lot, considering the likelihood of running into anyone, how many dog-fighting opportunities there might be, the possibility that my dog may just run off altogether, and how I would explain that to my boys, knowing they would be suspicious, since they think I hate her anyway.     

Nevertheless, we started out, and something wonderful happened.  

She was delighted to be free and delighted to be near me all at the same time.  It was like we'd been walking these trails for years and we were the subject of all the books written about man and his best friend.  Huh!

If I'm on a trail of any kind, I'm happy.  But, as we went along, I realized how my happiness multiplied at watching her enjoy her freedom, as well as being aware of her desire to share it with me. She didn't have to. She would race ahead and saunter back.  At all of the forks in the road, she was ahead of me, so she'd make a guess (usually the wrong one), but I'd call her name one time, and she would eagerly correct her course.  

As so often happens in my thoughts, God showed up and whispered, "See?".  Yes.  Yes, I see.

I saw many things.  I saw that her desire was to lay in every puddle of water we crossed.

I also saw that she was willing to abandon her puddle, if it meant parting ways with me.  I saw that I would feel sad for her if she had to pee on every tree, smell every leaf, or stay in every puddle she entered, at the cost of pursuing what was still ahead. 

Then, I thought of the patients I've visited in the hospital trying to detox from one addiction or another, and all of us who end up chasing some inherently good desire, and lose our freedom in pursuit of it.  We get stuck.  We come to a fork in the road, and we can't change course.  We can't get out of the puddle.  We like it too much.

As a wise man once told me, "You're not free to say 'yes' until you're free to say 'no'.  This is true for everything from everyday commitments to illicit pleasures.  Words to live by.

One patient who fought his addiction for twenty-something years, wasn't able to kick it until he was on the brink of losing his wife and kids, when he realized he loved them more than prescription drugs.  Based on his experience, it seems we ultimately lack the greater, stronger, and more noble desire to be with/for others and the One who made us for Himself.  There are as many explanations for this "lack" as there are people.  

We have this great thirst for freedom because our most fundamental aspiration is for happiness; and we sense that there is no happiness without love, and no love without freedom.  This is perfectly true.  Human beings were created for love, and they can only find happiness in loving and being loved.

-Interior Freedom, Jacques Phillipe

I think the same is true for dogs, which is why we relate to them so well.  

With our dog, it has taken six months to get to the place where her desire for communion outweighs everything else.   I guess this evolution of trust and desire has developed slowly and quietly (and sometimes very stinkily), as we've shared time and space under one roof.  Learning routines, things we love, and things to avoid at all costs.  Today, my dog was willing to leave her puddle or switch directions entirely, out of a desire to be with me, as inexplicable as that is. 

Can I move from master to dog in this story and let God take my place?  

Left or right, wet or dry, stay or go, it's all the same to me -- as long as I can remain in Your Presence. 

       

Can I become as free as my dog off-leash?  Is it even possible to spend enough time with God to learn to desire Him more than a puddle, money, sex, drugs, or anything else?  The saints challenge our flesh and our logic with a resounding YES.  It only feels impossible.   

Trippin' On A Sick Day

My second-grader stayed home with a fever today.  If you don't have a 7-year-old at your elbow, you should look into renting one.  The conversations are often thought-provoking and always entertaining.  Just last week, on his way out the door, he excitedly announced that class-jobs were going to be assigned that day.  But, right afterward, like any grown-up thinking things through, the nagging afterthought tumbled out, "I hope I'm not the caboose." 

Do you ever expect anyone to say "caboose"?!  Goodness, me.  He had me laughing all day at the thought of it.  That afternoon proved that wishes come true sometimes, but not always.  At least it was only for one week. 

Today's conversation included the question of which super-power I would choose.  You know...flying, breathing underwater, teleporting, or going back in time?  Flying, for me.  As much as I'd love to breathe underwater, I just don't think I'd use it as much as flying.  He chose going back in time.  Back in time, really?!  Yeah, like back to before school started.  Oh, I see.  Like a week ago.  Yeah, and back when you could fly and breathe underwater.  Wait a minute...is it possible to cheat in this game? 

But, then it occurred to me that it would probably be very difficult to be happy wherever you were, if you could always be somewhere else.  Especially if you went there by simply thinking about it.  If only I were at the ocean...

The ocean is beautiful, but it sure is hot.  If only I could be somewhere cooler, or with shade.  Like on a mountaintop...hillside...riverbank...you-name-it...if only...

And what if, in addition to always wanting to be somewhere other than where you were, you could only travel alone?  Even if you could manage to be content in one place, you'd probably be sad after a while, unless you're a super-duper introvert and never needed another person to enjoy life.  Ever. 

I mean, that sounds great, for a little while.  It reminds me of a trip I took by myself to Galveston some years ago.  That 24-hour-trip was the fruit of a little Mommy-math, which was the realization that I had three little boys at home and I hadn't been alone for 24-hours in five years.  I was overdue. 

I sat on the beach and read until I couldn't sit and read anymore.  I played the guitar.  I took myself to dinner that night and spent the hour at my table, watching a family with small children at their's.  The next morning, I was ready to go back home.  I learned a valuable lesson on that trip.  Sometimes, it's good to leave, just so you can be ready to come home again.

So, I'm grateful for my little mind trip today and the second-grader who bought my ticket, 'cause here I am - as happy as I can be on the sofa in my living room, with nowhere to go and nothing to see, but some kid-show-on-TV and a little boy in a recliner with a cold rag on his forehead. 

From Hobby Lobby to the Dentist: All You Need to Know About Parenting

Today was the perfect day to describe parenthood in all its wonder.

Event #1:  I was at Hobby Lobby with my three boys to spend my gift card on some twine they needed to make bracelets.  Of course, each boy found some great clearance item they couldn't live without, so I agreed to chip in $5.00 for each one, and they would pay the rest.

On our way to check out, I bumped into an old friend, who had three kids in her cart and one by her side.  We talked about summer, school, her working out and me not, and the like.  During this conversation, her children didn't make a peep nor show one ounce of impatience, and her oldest is one year younger than my youngest.

Meanwhile, my boys were playing grab-ass, which ended with nutcrackers on the floor (Yes, Christmas stuff is out already), some very misplaced blame (Me!), and an embarrassed and ticked off someone (Me, again!).

I commended my friend for her well-behaved children.  She graciously thanked me and said that they often behaved more like mine, and we parted ways.

My boys and I had an emergency meeting the next aisle over in very hushed tones, the fruit of which was a silent march back to the clearance section, a return of all items that minutes before couldn't have been lived without, and a long, quiet ride home.

Parenting conclusion #1:  My boys are unbelievably ill-behaved and not at all suited to going out in public.  I am definitely doing something wrong.

Event #2:  After arriving home from Hobby Lobby, I assembled a birthday gift for my niece.  While I was doing so, my youngest decided he wanted to give everyone in our neighborhood a gift, to make them happy.  (I think after leaving Hobby Lobby empty-handed, he was acutely aware of how much the world at large was in need of happiness)!

I told him a note would accomplish the same thing and he instantaneously became an author, illustrator, Santa Claus, mailman, and delinquent.  He wrote and illustrated notes, walked to the neighbors' homes, rang the doorbell, dropped his happiness, and ran!  Fortunately, I'm friends with one of these neighbors on Facebook, so I copied his picture from his post thanking whoever it was.  He tagged me, so I guess he had a pretty good idea...                                          



Parenting conclusion #2:  I have one very thoughtful son.  Maybe I'm not totally failing as a parent.

Event #3:  4:00pm.  Dentist appointments for all three.  For the first time ever, I didn't go back with them - probably because I was still recovering from Hobby Lobby.  So, I stayed in the waiting area, availing myself of the Keurig-love and pretended I was on vacation. When they were all finished, the dentist and her staff came out to brief me, and they all gushed about how well-behaved and polite the boys were, and could I teach them how to train their kids like that? Ha!

Parenting conclusion #3:  I'm the best parent in the world!!!  Not really.  More like, don't trust the dentist!  Not really.  More like...my kids are like me and all of our fellow earthlings...Not as bad or as good as they seem in any given moment.  There but for the grace of God, go we.   

If You Wouldn't or Couldn't Anymore

Do you ever have those moments when you receive everything you already have as a gift anew?

For the last six weeks, I've had a knot and swelling under my left arm.  For the last two weeks, I started to worry.  This week, I had a mammogram, ultrasound, and blood work and all is well. 

All.  Is.  Well.

I work with and for people who have a story that ends much differently than mine, but begins much the same.  I see them in the hospital, sometimes abandoned by the ones they love, fighting for their lives against cancer or other life-altering diagnoses.

In my work, I always try to imagine what it would be like to be in my patient's "shoes", although they are seldom wearing any.  Usually, something more like non-skid socks. 

For the last couple of weeks, my imagination has been very busy doing what imaginations do.  But, I've been imagining for myself, as well as all of the others.  I don't consider myself to be a hypochondriac, but I definitely know enough to have a dangerous thought life.  Even without a medical background, Google can scare the hell out of anybody. 

In its bleakest moment, my imagination leaves kids behind and prior to that, imagines being on the outside of the life I've created, looking in.  Too sick to participate, but well enough to see.  This is confirmed in the stories of people I've visited with - people whose imaginations have been laid off because reality has no need of them. 

What if, what if, what if...

And in the middle of a string of what ifs, I remembered a very special patient who was struggling with cancer and has since passed away.  She told me when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, that she invited God to "show off" in her.  She gave Him total permission to use everything about her suffering for His Glory.  So, I borrowed her prayer, in my not-knowing.

Only God is not "showing off" in my suffering, but very hopefully, through my health.  How often is our health "wasted" on carrying out the activities of daily living?  Not wasted because we're doing things that don't need to be done  (Lord knows that dishes and laundry and grocery shopping and all the rest have to be done!), but because we're not grateful that we're able to do them!

Can you imagine yourself in a hospital bed for a day?  A week?  Months on end?  Can you imagine coming home afterward, restored and rejoicing in your ability to do the same things that you loathe doing today?

I can and I am. 

And this is why I'm writing today - To live in the reality that in a moment, we would give anything to have what we already have and to do what we're already doing, if only we thought that we wouldn't or couldn't anymore. 

  

Outskirts of Heaven

I met another one today.  Somebody who has been to the outskirts of Heaven.  At the time, she was 12-years-old.  She had a high fever and was wondering why the ice her body was packed in didn't feel cold.  Shortly thereafter, she traveled through a beautiful valley, saw somebody she knew to be her grandmother (though they'd never met), and heard a resounding voice tell her, "It's not your time.  You must go back." 

Some fifty years have passed.  She recalls her trip to the outskirts as if it were yesterday.  She has no fear of dying and anticipates her entry into eternity with great confidence and joy.  She urges the dying to shake off their fear, and the grieving to cry only for themselves. 

Working as a hospital chaplain, these kinds of stories are finding their way to me and I couldn't be more grateful.  But tonight, I wonder again, if I have a role beyond courting gratitude.  Is my privilege of listening to these encounters part and parcel of my responsibility to join these blessed ones in their very-clear-mission-to-tell?.  ...Everyone to whom much is given, of him much will be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.  [Luke 12:48]

Last week, I met a woman who was touched by Jesus on her left shoulder when she was intubated and struggling to breathe.  She knew it was Him because she recognized His sandals, His shining robe and His beard (although it was longer than she expected).  She saw everything except His Face.  She was up and walking around three hours later.   

It made sense to her that she would have to wait to see Jesus face to face, as she recalled Exodus 33:21-23:  And the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by...you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

She said the Lord tells her who to tell about her experience.  I made the list, so she assumed I was skeptical and needed her story to bolster my faith.  I assured her that my faith was indeed bolstered, but that I was not at all skeptical.  

One man was stabbed multiple times in his youth.  He visited the outskirts and is now an elder in his church and a beacon of hope to all of the young men in his impoverished neighborhood.  Young men who need every reason to believe, but have (almost) every reason not to.

Yet another, and perhaps my favorite story, was a man who was helping his younger brother one afternoon.  His brother was dying of leukemia.  During their time together, his brother asked him, "Do you hear that?!"  He didn't.  "I hear trumpets," he said.  A little while later..."Do you see that?!"  He didn't.  "The angels!  The angels are coming for me."  His brother died the next day.

A couple of decades later, the man who told me this story "died" during his first of several strokes.  He saw his brother who heard trumpets and saw angels, sitting with another brother on a hill of the greenest green.  They beckoned for him to cross the valley separating them.  But, he knew it wasn't time.  He shook his head no.  He had to come back to earth...to tell.

A few months ago, in another post, I reviewed The Other Side by Michael H. Brown - a collection of experiences and encounters of those who have visited the other side.  Every story I have heard in person matches up with all of the others I've read about.  While their modes of transportation seem to vary, their experiences are exactly the same in the beauty they describe, the peace they felt, the voice or knowing that it wasn't their time to stay, a complete absence of desire to return to earth, an overwhelming conviction they'd been to Heaven (or at least the outskirts) when they returned, and an unmistakable sense of mission to tell about this other reality, and Jesus who abides there.

I'm so very grateful... for my job, which provides the opportunities to hear these stories and to meet the people who carry them.  To have my faith edified daily.  To share their gift with others, and hopefully, to help them fulfill their God-given mission...to tell. 

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever  Amen.  [Book of Jude, v.24] 


 


 

One Shade of Grey

I don't really like the color grey and I magically disappear during discussions of how many shades of it there might be.  For me, there is only one shade of grey.  Grey and not grey.  Grey and the opposite of grey - blatantly obvious.    I much prefer blatantly obvious.  Remind me to write Crayola. 

My favorite color is actually green (which would be good to know if you're writing a book), but today, grey abounds. 

When too much grey is hanging out upstairs, I have to sort it out.  Sort of like brain laundry, I guess.  As much as I wish my basket full of grey could be separated neatly into two piles, preferably one black and one white, the best I can do is throw the laundry on the floor and decide...What is grey and what isn't.

For today...

Grey is... standing in for an absent ordained Protestant minister when you are a lay Catholic woman.  Who said God doesn't have a sense of humor?

Grey isn't... a room full of people expecting a church service, who don't care one iota who shows up or what they show up with.  They are simply ready to receive what is offered - without judgment and overflowing with gratitude.  Being empty and hungry is not grey.  It is beautiful.  Especially to those who are neither empty nor hungry.  Blessed are the poor in spirit...Matt 5:3  

Grey is when you've been married for forty years, your husband is ready to die and giving him your support means you will be without his, for the rest of your life.

Grey isn't... the love that can endure that kind of self-sacrifice.

Grey is...telling someone you love them without clarifying why or being at all sure they love you, too.

Grey isn't...having no regrets if time runs short, or opportunities run out. 

Grey is...being stranded on an island and wondering if you're offending your God by paddling back to the Mainland with the wrong colored paddle, when it's the only one you have.

Grey isn't...the God who created islands and paddles.