Today I smell like chocolate...

I am wearing a fragrance that makes me think of chocolate.

It is not one of my favorites,

but it was one of his.

 

I am wearing jewelry I don’t often wear anymore

because he gave it to me

and it seems disrespectful to my current life.

 

I am, as I write this,

lunching in a restaurant I no longer frequent.

 

I drove through the old neighborhood earlier.

And I went to the cemetery to change flowers.

 

Eight years ago today he went home.

 

I no longer grieve in the way I did on that day

and those anguished days that followed.

It is different now.

 

I think grief is much like marriage itself.

In the beginning, marriage is new and exciting,

filled with passion and emotions,

fluttering tummies and anticipation of

the end of the work day

when you are together again.

 

Over time, the passions, the high emotions

become calmer,

the love becomes quieter

and acquires depth and a lasting quality

that is missing in the beginning

before it has some wear.

 

And when your love is completed

and one of you celebrates the ultimate homecoming,

the whole process begins again,

but with grief.

 

On this day of Al’s homecoming,

I feel as I did on our wedding anniversaries

during his life –

a renewed sense of “honeymoon” then,

a renewed sense of grief now.

 

I want to briefly share a couple recent conversations.

I share them because today,

eight years later,

happily remarried,

is hard.

And people don’t understand why.

And most still won’t.

But I just need to say it.

Again.

 

As most of you who are regular readers know,

I am joyously remarried to my second great love.

A friend, recently widowed, asked me with a mix of dread and anticipation,

when I stopped loving Al.

The pain of her beloved’s death

is so intense that she wants it to stop.

Her love is so deep and she fears it will.

 

I answered emphatically –

NEVER!!!

My love for Al is complete.

It is no longer a growing, vibrant thing.

Neither is it dead.

Love is eternal!

I do not simply have a new great love,

I have two.

 

The second conversation is specific to Christians.

1 Thessalonians 4 tells us that Christians

are not to grieve as others do

for we have a hope, a sure knowledge,

that we will meet our Christian loved ones again

in Heaven.

This passage refers to our spirits,

our trust and faith in God.

It does not refer to our emotional response

to the earthly loss of a loved one in death.

 

Recently, someone intimated

that my Lanny Love and I still grieve the loss

of our first great loves

because we aren’t, or they weren’t, Christians.

That opinion was reiterated over several weeks in letters.

This person has never experienced an intimate loss.

His wife is living.

All his children are living.

All his grandchildren are living.

His parents are both still living.

His siblings are living.

My heart is heavy for the crisis of faith

that I fear he will experience

when his emotional response to the death

of one of these people

is grief.

 

So today, on this eighth homecoming celebration,

my grief has become noisy again, new and raw.

It will quiet,

but until then,

I lean into God,

I lean into my Lanny Love –

who sadly understands.

And I grieve the amputation that occurred

when the two that became one

once again became two.

 

I miss you, Alfie.

Happy homecoming day!

 

 

Now is your time of grief,

but I will see you again and you will rejoice,

and no one will take away your joy.

 

~~ John 16:22 ~~

Love is a many splendored thing…

And a LOT of hard work!

 

I have loved many people in my life.

I love my children!

I love my grandchildren!

I love my sisters and brothers!

I love my parents!

I love my friends!

 

I love my husbands!

And that is the kind of love that has spurred this post.

I love deeply, passionately.

In all my relationships,

but most especially in my romantic ones.

 

I have been engaged four times.

Three of those times, I was deeply in love.

Two of those times, I married the man.

Of those four engagements,

twice, I was the one who loved more

and twice, I was the one more loved.

I will not say which was which because it doesn’t matter.

I will say that both sides created difficulties for me.

 

When I was more loved,

I felt guilty.

I should love more, try harder.

And I was right about that.

But you know,

I was never able to outlove those two men.

Because their love for me wouldn't allow it.

 

When I loved more,

it was hard to know that I was not the most important thing.

Sometimes it flat out hurt!

Sometimes, it would have been easier to just say,

"Fine!" 

and withdraw.

But despite my sometimes hurt feelings,

I worked all the harder to love well.

I pampered, spoiled, catered to, wooed.

I pursued ardently.

Because I so greatly desired to be wholly loved,

the most important.

 

Just as God's love for us

won't allow us to outlove Him.

Just as He desires to be wholly loved,

the most important to us!

 

Finally we get to it!

 

I believe that the marriage relationship

most closely emulates God’s relationship with us.

Most people think it is the parent/child relationship.

I disagree.

 

You see, we raise our children –

rightfully so –

to become independent of us,

to need us less and less as time goes on,

to eventually fly the nest

where we lovingly protected them when they were young.

 

However, in a good and loving marriage relationship,

we become more and more dependent upon one another,

our need for the other grows and deepens with time,

we nestle more deeply into the protective wing

of that person we most love in the world

and cannot fathom a life apart from them.

 

This is how our relationship with God should be!

Ever more dependent!

 

Recently, it occurred to me to wonder.

Does God sometimes feel pain and hurt

at the knowledge that He loves us more,

that we love Him less than other people or things?

Does He grieve that we take His love for granted?

Is He jealous of those things that come first,

those things we rank ahead of Him?

Does He sometimes weep

in wanting our complete devotion to Him?

Does He grow weary of

pampering, spoiling, catering to, wooing us

only to remain in second or third or fourth... 

or anything but first place?

Do we break His heart

by not loving Him best?

 

May I never hurt you so, Lord God!

 

Holiday Grief

It is just after 5am.I have been up for an hour. No, I don't have anywhere to be, it's just one of those mornings.

I am cuddled in my chair by the fire in the soft glow of the Christmas tree and fragrant candlelight. The house and world are still and quiet. My spirit, however, is stirring.

A lot has happened in my world in recent weeks. A trip to see my in-laws in another state. The resulting COVID exposure and our own illness. A disagreement with a family member that has haunted me. And, perhaps most significant, another shifting in the grief process.

Someone said to me recently that they didn't have to experience grief to understand it. I couldn't possibly disagree more. I have experienced it and I still don't understand it.

I have lost an infant child. I have lost my parents and one set of in-laws. I have lost all of my grandparents. I have lost numerous dear friends and other relatives. I thought surely, if anyone did, I understood grief. Then I lost a husband. I had no idea about grief!

Each grief experience is different. And my experience in a relational loss is not the same as yours in the same relational loss because each relationship is different. Several new widows in my life this year has reminded me of that fact. But there are some general similarities. One of those is time and morphosis.

They say that time heals all wounds and there is some truth to that, but those wounds, though healed, are scarred, and remain tender for some time, often permanently. Grief becomes the broken ankle that functions perfectly on a day-to-day basis but tells you for the rest of your life when the weather is changing.

The weather is changing.

I am nearly through my eighth year of widowhood. In just over a month, I will enter the ninth year. With each passing year, there are shifts. This eighth year has been no exception.

I will be talking more about the grieving process, particularly as it relates to Christians, in an upcoming blog, but for this time I will simply state that I am no longer in active grief and have not been in that highly and constantly emotional state for several years. Yet I do have those times when the sensation of loss returns, sometimes very briefly, sometimes over a period of time. I do not have days when my late husband does not come to mind. There are very few when he is not mentioned in some way in conversation. But my life no longer centers around him and loss. I have moved forward, fallen in love again, remarried, and am excessively happy in my current life. Yet, the past is not erased.

This summer, I had a very strange dream. It was very vivid and I still remember it clearly these many months later. It was an exclamation point on what I suspected was another shifting in the grieving process. The morphosis has continued and recently received another exclamation point.

I guess all this is to say that for those of you out there in active grief, be patient with yourselves. Don't expect too little, allow yourself to stagnate in your grief, it is not a place to live indefinitely, but don't expect to much from yourself either. This time of year is hard. Somehow that empty chair looms larger, seems emptier. Give yourself grace. This time will pass and you will again rejoice in the holiday season.

For those of you out there supporting a loved one in grief, please don't say to them that it's time to move on! Especially if they have not yet reached the second anniversary of the death. Just don't! It isn't helpful! In fact, it just makes things worse, makes them feel even more isolated and lonely. Moving on is not an option. They will move FORWARD, most likely are doing so even if it doesn't seem that way to you, but they will never move ON. There is a difference. Instead, mention their loved one by name! Share a special memory! Offer grace, even if you don't understand. And give thanks to God that you don't! 

Election 2020

I've thought about this day for a while now.

How would I react?

If my man won, would I gloat?

If he lost would I pout, throw a tantrum?

I knew I would not loot and burn and demonstrate,

that isn't in me,

but would I behave just as badly in my spirit?

Today I know.

I have prayed diligently for our nation in the last weeks and months.

I have prayed diligently for our president.

Today, I will continue to do so.

You see, we arrogantly believe we have placed in power the man we want.

We have not.

God has placed in power the man HE wants there!

For HIS purpose!

I don't understand, but I don't have to.

I don't even agree, but I don't have to.

God has many, many times allowed and caused things

with which I don't agree.

I haven't always seen the light,

but often, in retrospect, I can see His purpose and rejoice!

 

Today, I trust Him!

Today, I pray for our nation,

for our president,

and for our president-elect.

May God bless these men and our nation!