Day of Rememberance

Next Tuesday is my day of remembrance. It’s been six years since my husband suddenly died.  My journey with grief has taken on different dimensions as time has passed. Like inhabiting a house, grief occupies a space in my life. My “lived-in” grief is familiar yet surprisingly intrusive. It accompanies me when I find myself sitting at a table with couples and I’m the only single person. It slides its way into my walk with the dog, as I keep my head down while a couple kisses in the driveway. It hides out in the Costco parking lot when I see an elderly couple help each other out of the car.

It’s “lived-in,” as I see the days on the calendar offer memories of celebrations and places we visited. The photos that pop up on my phone poke at me with an ache and a smile as I remember the place where we were when the photo was taken. Life has continued amidst the abrupt stop where grief first made its appearance.

Each year that passes, grief takes an encore, where it arrives, steps on stage, and then exits. When I see the stage of my life, I’m aware that God’s faithfulness has sustained me and brought growth and change out of the worst experience in my life. “Before” marks how my life was, with “after” ushering me into a life I could have never imagined. God’s comfort and unfailing love are realities I live and experience on a daily basis.

Author and professor Kate Bowler eloquently says, “May I understand here the real work of life is found. Where it takes courage to live. Where grief can strip me to the studs and love can remake me once again. Where my heart can be both broken and keep on beating. Never sorry to have broken at all.”
(From The Lives We Actually Have)

Grateful for both the breaking and the beating. Grateful, yet grieving.

"Grateful Yet Grieving"

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download

Marking Time

By Catherine Kornweibel

Counting the days; as a child, I’d count the days until Christmas; until my birthday; until the last day of school; or until school started again in the Fall.

Time must be coded in our DNA. The timing of our monthly period; timing of the length of a normal pregnancy.

Is it any wonder that our grief is marked by Time?

For me, it’s time and seasons. As I write this, it is exactly 14 days before the first anniversary of my husband’s death. It’s not just the calendar that confirms it. I feel it in the air; in the subtle change of seasons; in rapid oncoming of night. I feel as though Ted is going to die all over again.

Through this past year of grief, time and again I have experienced divine “interventions” that have stopped me in my tracks or lifted me out of a slough of despond. It’s been a manifestation of God’s word made evident in my life: Romans 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

The most remarkable occurred on May 6th, the last full day of a month-long cruise I took around Japan and back to Seattle. I suddenly realized that this would have been my mother’s 105th birthday. In a few hours, our ship would be turning eastward sailing past the Olympic Peninsula, past the exact beach where my mother had owned a house. I was writing in my journal, overlooking the rugged coast of British Columbia, when I received a lengthy text from one of my mother’s dearest friends. We haven’t communicated in years, except for the annual Christmas card. She was remembering my mother (even sent a photo of her) and acknowledging the deep loss I must be carrying from Ted’s death. Nancy had NO idea I was on a ship, about to pass by her community as well. I quickly exited the library, tears streaming down my face, went out on the deck, and sobbed. The two people who loved me the most on this earth were gone.

But, at just the right time, I received the perfect place and the perfect time to grieve. And the perfect assurance that I was not alone.

"Grateful Yet Grieving"

FREE ebook by Pam Luschei | Click HERE To Download