Let me just start out by saying thank you to my dear friend (you know who you are) for calling me up and taking me out last night. It was so nice to be able to get out of the house by myself just to do something 'fun'. Alan and I continue to be so very thankful for friends and family who have not forgotten us in the busyness of life and have kept reaching out to us the past few weeks.
Anyone who has suffered through the loss of someone close can testify to the eventual darkness that begins to set in and surround you. The initial shock wears off and while you have no choice but to try to return to 'normal'-things will not be as they were before your loss. The reality of our loss is settling in pretty heavily with me this week. There have been hardly any moments of happiness. I mostly have had to face the overwhelming experience of deep despair and depression-a place I have never been before. My conscious mind would rather not have to experience what I am at the moment but the conscious mind has no control. Just this morning I am overwhelmed with tears and feel like I could cry for a completely unrelated reason.
Shortly after Braden's passing, we received a nice letter and book in the mail from a local couple (our age) who had unexpectedly lost their own nine month old in 2009. Alan and I have separately picked it up to start reading it. The name of the book is "A Grace Disguised" How the Soul Grows Through Loss by Jerry Sittser. Jerry lost his mother, wife, and one of his daughters in a tragic car accident and in this book he helps the reader understand what it's like to experience loss in light of one's faith. In reading his book I am able to identify many similar feelings and thoughts in my own journey. I appreciate his depth and honesty about the human race.
He made some points in the beginning of the book that really resonated with me. Ironically this week there was a similar post shared on the Proverbs 31 blog about loss and our human tendency to compare our losses with one another. I appreciate his thoughts as he poses the question "Is it really useful to decide whose losses are worse?" The context of the question is our habit of comparing our losses with one another and humanly determining on our own there are differing degrees of pain. For example, some are severely disabled from accidents while others die. Or someone goes through the pain of a divorce, or abuse in some form. He goes on to say this:
"Catastrophic loss of whatever kind is always bad, only bad in different ways. It is impossible to quantify and to compare. The very attempt we often make in quantifying losses only exacerbates the loss by driving us to two unhealthy extremes. On the one hand, those coming out on the losing end of the comparison are deprived of the validation they need to identify and experience the loss for the bad thing it is. They sometimes feel like the little boy who scratched his finger but cried too hard to receive much sympathy. Their loss is dismissed as unworthy of attention and recognition. On the other hand, those coming out on the winning end convince themselves that no one has suffered as much as they have, that no one will ever understand them, and that no one can offer lasting help. They are the ultimate victims. So they indulge themselves with their pain and gain a strange kind of pleasure in their misery. Whose loss is worse? The question begs the point. Each experience of loss is unique, each painful in its own way, each as bad as everyone else's but also different."I am not the kind of person that wants to sit at home in self pity nor am I the kind of person who desires any greater attention for my loss. However, like most people having no choice to travel this journey I completely appreciate not having to travel my journey alone. Alan has also recently made a comment to me about how it becomes incredibly significant to have others 'invest' in our journey with us. What does it mean to be fully invested in someone's journey of loss? It means to just be available and be fully present in our lives. We understand the heart and know that words will never make us experience healing of any kind. Healing is only something that God can do in us. We don't want people in our lives keeping a 'safe' distance out of fear of not knowing what to say. The reality is that we don't need anyone to say anything but just be in our lives walking beside us.
Alan and I have both individually and as a married couple had to walk several roads of loss in our lives. I know that the difficult situations I've had to go through have given me a greater depth as a person I would have never attained otherwise. I think my challenge is always my attitude while in the middle of it all. If you believe you are a follower of Christ, isn't our intent to allow God to make us more like Him? I believe that's why he allows us to experience tragedy in life-to mold us and make us more like Jesus. We will never know our Lord or share in His sufferings apart from having to go through some small share of that in our own lives. Our suffering will never compare to what He did for us on the cross. As a human though, having to endure is not always easy. My faith is being challenged in many ways and I'm doing my best to take it one day at a time and I'm thankful for friends to help me in my journey.
