There was an earth shaking boom that many of us heard yesterday morning, and the debris of the Space Shuttle Columbia has been raining into our lives ever since. I am talking about the emotional debris of such a disaster. The shock, the disbelief, the anger, the sadness, the fear. All the emotions that come with such a loss, with such an incredible waste of precious lives and hopes and dreams. None of us knew the seven men and women who died in the skies over our heads yesterday. In fact, if you are like me, you probably were not even aware they were up there. Yet their deaths fill our hearts with the same feelings we have felt when we have lost somebody we loved. And so we all grieve, we mourn, we suffer as if our brothers and sisters, our mothers or fathers, our daughters or sons had been in the space-craft.
That is the nature of grief, isn’t it? And we as a family of faith have shared much grief in the last couple years. We have said “Good-bye” to four members of our church family: Jerry Heiman, Nova Davis, Ellen Shomette, and Pete Gray. Members of our church family have said “Good-bye” to members of their families: Chuck and Ellen McGowan lost a son; Troy Wallis lost his grandmother; Linda Robinson lost her husband and David Hunter his dad; Hunter and Betty Wise lost a daughter; Troy Wallis lost his grandmother; J.C. and Colleen lost a nephew; Carolyn Maddox lost her daughter; Helen and Ralph Lacy lost a son; Joan Wilbur lost her mother, Buddy Trotman lost his wife; Judy Youngs lost two aunts; and, just yesterday, Joyce Ives lost her mother.
Grief is an emotion every one of us has felt. It is an inevitable hurt because death itself cannot be avoided. Yet it is not something we talk about. It is one of those subjects that we avoid. Our culture begins teaching us to turn away from our grief very early on. Although God gives each of us the natural ability to heal these emotional wounds, most all of us got messages early in life that we should not express those feelings. And it was from then on that many of us got so good at suppressing them that now we don’t even feel them. Until a loud boom in the sky above our heads. And then all our hurts and losses, all our griefs rain down on our lives again.
From our earliest days we were taught that sad, pain-ful or “negative” feelings were to be avoided at all costs. And if we were unable to avoid feeling them, we were not to show them in public. Most all of us have heard words like “Don’t cry, it will be alright.” “Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.” Or maybe even “Shut up that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Most all of our tools for handling those kinds of emotions were de-veloped when we were quite young. So we usually are trying to manage the most difficult times in our adult lives with the limited perceptions and skills we learned as children.
Our misperceptions and fears keep us from learning new skills and developing healthier perspectives. That little child in us thinks things like:
· People will think I am weak, or immature, or out of control or crazy if I show my feelings.
· I shouldn’t burden others with my troubles.
· I have to be strong for others.
· I have to keep busy all the time.
· If I start crying I’ll never stop.
· I should be over this by now. What’s the matter with me?
So when we are hit with a shock like yesterday’s tragedy, and our hearts are flooded with feelings we thought were too old to bother us again, that little child in us wants to run away and hide. Or as a friend of mine told me yesterday, “I just want to do that ostrich thing and stick my head in a hole and pre-tend none of this is happening.” Its no wonder then that we try to avoid the subject altogether.
But a mature and healthy understanding of grief can help that little kid inside each of us not feel so scared or overwhelmed or lonely. When we understand that we are not the only ones feeling those scary painful feelings, when we understand that those feelings are normal, that we are not going crazy, or having a “nervous breakdown”, then we can see grieving for what it is: a god given way to heal the hurts of our losses, to celebrate and cherish the blessings and memories, and to redirect our lives in meaningful and hopeful paths to wholeness.
So what have we learned about grief? First we have learned that just as each of us is a unique individual, each of us must grieve in our own way. While most everyone experiences the same feelings, there really are no “stages” of grief that everyone must go through in a certain way in order to come out healthy and whole on the other side.
The death of someone important to you produces an almost unimaginable amount of emotional energy as your mind seeks to put all the pieces back in place. Those emotions run the gamut of human feelings. Many of us begin with shock and disbelief. Even if a person has been sick for a long time or the death was expected or even a welcomed relief from suffering, there may still be feelings that tell you it didn’t happen. Disbelief and confusion are normal emotions that many, many people feel.
Shortness of temper, irritability, impatience and an-ger are also to be expected along the way. We may be mad at the hospital, the doctors, the insurance company, family members, the church, the preacher. We might be ticked off at the person who died. “How dare he do this to us!” We might even be furious with God for letting this happen. Anger is a normal emotion and most everybody feels mad at one point or another as we work through our grief.
Depression is also a normal part of the process. A dull, gray, blah sort of feeling where you really don’t feel anything. Nothing will focus. You can’t seem to think clearly. Things that you can normally do without thinking require your full concentration and then you just can barely make it.
Sadness and deep, deep emotional pain and suffering is the heart of our grief. When we reach this tender place where our hearts are broken and the pain is most intense, we have come the place where healing can start, where hope can be born and new life can begin.
And that place of healing is the place we want to be. A place where we can remember and celebrate the blessings that came into our lives through our relationships, even if those blessings were born of hurt, and disappointment and pain. This is the place where we can get in touch with our deepest values, those things that are most important to us and we can begin to start to rebuild ours lives in ways that affirm those values and live out their truths.
Those are the range of emotions but how do we get from here to there. How do we “work through” that grief to get to rebirth and new life and hope? Let me share some ideas for making that journey if you are on that road. And then some ideas for holding the hands of people you love who may be needing your love and care as they walk that path.
When you are grieving:
1. Remember that grieving is an active process. It takes energy that will likely have to be temporarily withdrawn from the usual pursuits of your life. Treat yourself with the same care, tolerance, and affection you would extend to a valued friend in a similar situation.
2. Go gently -- take whatever time you need, rather than giving yourself a deadline for when you should be "over it."
3. Expect and accept some reduction in your usual efficiency and consistency; be as patient with your-self as you would be with a beloved friend.
4. Talk regularly about your grief and your memo-ries with someone you trust. Feeling and expressing those feelings is the surest path to healing. Start with God if you can. God is a great listener and really enjoys the time you spend alone with the spirit whom Jesus called “Abba”, “Papa”. But don’t stop there. Keep the eyes of your heart open for the people God sends you who can be with you as you walk this road. Friends, especially those who have been through it themselves, can lighten the load of grieving alone.
5. If you enjoy writing, spend some time each day writing in your private journal, recording your feel-ings and the lessons you are learning on your jour-ney. Healthy grieving will have much to teach you.
6. Tell those around you what helps you and what doesn’t, not as a way to express your anger but as a way of asking for what you want from those who want to give you what you want and need.
7. Don’t pretend that you are feeling fine when you are not. Don’t lie when people ask how you are doing. How many of you like it when someone lies to you? How many of you have ever said ’I’M FINE’ when you were feeling terrible? Nobody likes being lied to...and yet everybody lies about their sad feelings. If this were a physical illness it would be an epidemic and the Center for Disease Control would be granted billions of dollars to find a cure. Every time we lie to others we lie to ourselves. Our subconscious mind hears the lie and continues to bury the feelings generated by the initial event. Unresolved losses are cumulative, and cumulatively negative. Time does not automatically heal the pain caused by loss and neither does lying about our feelings.
8. When you are ready, reach out to others who are hurting and share your experience, strength and hope with them. Once you have come far enough down the road to feel strong and full enough to feel that you have something to give, be open to those who might need your hand as they walk the road of grief. Your experience gives you the strength and courage to be with them as they work through what you have been through.
So how can you be a friend to someone who is walking that long and lonely road?
Several years ago a survey that asked: "What is the best way to act around someone who has just experi-enced the death of a loved one?" From the multiple-choice answers, 98 percent of the respondents chose: "Act as if nothing had happened."
Those who had experienced the death of a loved in the past five years were also surveyed. They were asked: "In the weeks and months immediately following the death of your loved one, what did you most want and need to do?" Ninety-four percent responded: "Talk about what happened and my relationship with the person who died."
So the first way to express your love and concern is to deal with your fear of the subject. Be willing to open the door of the conversation to the subject of their lose. “I can’t even imagine what you are going through.” is a good way to say, “It’s ok with me if you want to talk about it.” Remember your job is to open the door and invite them in. Not to go out and drag them in.
Should they decide to accept your invitation, your second task is to listen and to avoid giving advice or reassurance. I don’t think it is an accident that God gave us two ears and one mouth. It is especially im-portant when we are inviting a grieving person to share their feelings with us. Our goal is not to fix them or save them and make them feel better. Our goal is to be with them as they share.
Of course, that is no small task. Sharing another per-son’s pain or sorrow can be a painful thing. But it can also be a very special gift that we call the minis-try of presence. The gift of being there.
I had an experience years ago in St Joseph Hospital in Phoenix Arizona that taught me the truth of such a gift. I was doing a year of internship at First United Methodist Church there and on this particular day I was visiting members of the church in the hospital. As I walked down the hall of the hospital, I saw two people coming toward me. One supporting the other as they walked. As they came nearer, I saw that it was a man helping a woman who was probably re-covering from hip surgery. She was walking and you could tell by her body language that it was very pain-ful for her. As we approached each other I noticed that she was crying because it hurt so badly. And then I noticed that her friend who was helping was also crying. Not because his legs hurt, but because his heart hurt to see the one he loved in such pain.
That’s the risk we take when we share another’s grief. But when we take that risk and when the griev-ing person mourns well his or her loss, then we un-derstand why Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
