Grief 5: Peace

 As soon as I lie down, I fall peacefully asleep, for you alone, O LORD, bring security to my dwelling.

Psalm 4 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps it is the glorious sunshine, or the warmth in the air. Perhaps it is my beautiful daffodils—or the music of Easter—but today is a joyful one. OR maybe the privilege of being a Eucharistic minister today.

My last counseling session was simple and good. I think I've come to terms with the nature of grief.  It isn't collapsing in pain or uncontrollable tears. There is some sadness, yes, but not a debilitating amount. Regret? Not over my marriage, but I'm letting go of some over parenthood.

 

My grief is more general malaise and weariness as I adjust to new realities and expectations. It is an inability to imagine the future, which is undoubtedly a good thing. It is work, but it is manageable and it will pass. For now—one day at a time, one step at a time.

 

And I'm remembering His "word is a lamp unto my feet."

Grief 4: Life and Death

 

We had a glorious Easter—Alleluias, soaring music, sunshine, flowers, and warmth. I was reminded, though, that in order to have Easter, you must have Good Friday first. As CS Lewis famously said, "The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That is the deal."

My readers are probably aware this has been a difficult year. You may not know I lost both one of my daughters and my Beloved of 54 years in a space of three weeks at the beginning of the year. It is a lot to swallow. It will take a good long year of mourning before I can approach normal, if then.

This weekend I discovered the concept of "widow brain," a state that includes brain fog and fatigue. there is a growing body of science about the impact of loss on brain function. My whole brain is building new pathways and struggling with old ones. It explained a lot. Every thing I do from the time I get up until i go to bed (and especially then) is new and different. Expected stimuli are missing, new ones forming. No wonder I'm exhausted.

I continue to write daily, or try at least. This week I'm flying off to visit family. They live at an airport in a condo facing a pond visited by migrating birds. It will be a good break. This morning, I have to pack. And write. But first, coffee!

(This was originally posted on Caroline Warfield's blog. Caroline is Carol's pseudonym for novel writing.)

The Deadlies: Wrath

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander,    together with all malice...  

                                                                                    Ephesians 4:31

I am skipping Sloth for now because this one has been with me during my Lentan pondering this year. What is wrath? Though it is a synonym for anger, it is sometimes defined as forceful, vindictive anger. It implies resentment and vengeance.

It struck me recently that it is a good example for explaining the difference between petty sins and big sin. It is one thing to confess, time after time, "I snapped at my sister-in-law at a gathering" or "I yelled at my husband three times." It is quite another to dig out deep-seated long-term resentment and anger that lies under those frequent sins and pull it up by its roots. Without God's help, we have no hope of doing that. The snapping and yelling are manifestations of the sin we may be harboring.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote about the origin of sin by saying anger produces murder and therefore it should be killed when it starts to avoid growing into the greater evil. We have to root it out.

the producer of evil gives birth to lust before adultery and anger before murder, in destroying the firstborn he certainly kills along with it the offspring which follows. (Nyssa, The Life of Moses)

To pull out anger and resentment, to foster forgiveness and love, is to contribute to the store of peace in the world. To harbor it is to contribute to the store of wrath. As I write this war is raging in Israel and Gaza, in Ukraine, in central Africa, in Haiti, and threatening in many other places as if Wrath is unleashed and the Enemy has free rein. We can pray for peace, and we can work for it too.

Grief 3: Alone

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

I've never lived alone before. The quiet is deafening, hence the need for the TV to be on. I'm talking to Ambrose, the bear every day. SIGH.

It occurred to me yesterday that I am reluctant to wake up in the morning. I get a decent night's sleep, wake at 7:30 or 8, and then roll over, letting melatonin hangover drop me back into dreams. I've been sleeping until 10! I may be using my need for sleep after hospice (which is very real) as an excuse to avoid getting up to an empty house.

I've also been pondering advance grief. Is it possible I'm finished already? I was relatively calm when the decision for hospice was made because Greg and I had had suspected heart failure all along. Dr. Yasmajian thinks not. She suspects that caregivers frequently experience relief in the immediate aftermath of death that masks other things and grief can come in a wave later. Everyone grieves differently. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I walk with God every day. I'm not alone.

Two Hours Later...

Walking out on a nippy afternoon, I thought about something else, the hermit saints. Starting with Anthony of Egypt to Thomas Merton we have a whole history of people being called to solitude. I am not one of them. I've never felt a strong contemplative call. I was called to marriage and family. So what are God's plans for me in widowhood? I'll find out eventually.

Grief 2: One step

I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.

Cardinal Newman

 

 Another day and again I ask what am I to do. I've begun to write, and I put that in God's hands. Does He want me to spend my time or part of it writing novels of love and romance? Seems trivial, but then, he's never asked me to step out of the domestic sphere. The world of marriage and family is where he put me. It is the one thing he actually said to me. But without Greg...

I think of Greg with a smile, and I carry around a bear made of one of his shirts. I feel like a whole new life is flickering awake for me. I have no idea what it will bring. And what role with Rachel's sudden passing play? No idea.

One step...

Grief 1: Thy Will Be Done

Whenever we imagine we are in control of life—our own or someone else's—we have fallen prey to the ancient whisper in the Garden: "You shall be like gods."

Magnificat, Vol 24 Number 12, February 27, 2024

It is now forty-one days since my Beloved, my love for 54 years slipped gently away to God.  Suffering with his heart for all of his eighty years, it finally gave out after two particularly long difficult years of care. The last six months of in-home hospice care were a blessing. Every day from our anniversary July 26 until his death I knew exactly what God expected of me--caring for my husband round the clock. It was the longest period in my life when my calling was brilliantly clear. Every moment of it was a blessing.

Greg always said God would take him when He was ready and was perfectly at peace. We had lived every day of the last thirty years since the last crisis as if it could be our last. We had no regrets or work undone. we had traveled and spent endless time enjoying one another. We'd moved to be close to our Grandson and took full advantage of it. After some years of terrible estrangement, we had reconciled with our middle child, Rachel, and had her close for the last five years, seeing her at least weekly.

And then, God took Rachel too. On Christmas Eve. We had two funerals in three weeks. The burden of that added to months of sleepless and endlessly interrupted nights, left me numb. The exhaustion remains, and I still haven't relearned how to sleep through the night.  I still haven't cried or crumbled.

My calm concerned me. The counselor I'm seeing pointed out there is no one right way to grieve. Perhaps I was just ready. Perhaps Greg's faith and strength in the face of death sustain me. We'll see.

I've never lived alone before. I'm taking it one day at a time. I offer my day to God every morning. My theme song is now "Lead Kindly Light..."

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

Yep. That was me. Telling God what I was going to do for him and never waiting to listen. I am so trying to wake up every morning and give my day, that one day, over to his will. I did that yesterday, and he gave me...  MICE. I'll be dealing with the mess in my garage for a long while. Such is real life.  

The Deadlies: Greed

 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Matthew 5:3

This one is both obvious and subtle. I scanned various writers for ideas and found a sea of things:

1. Hands full of gold cannot reach for God. In other words, filling ourselves with wealth as our aim and goal leaves no room for God in our hearts and souls. Greed is a form of idolatry. 
2. Overabundance, while others go hungry, is a sin against charity.
3. If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man who has no shirt. (That gem is from Saint Ambrose)
4. Wealth isn't in and of itself evil, it is the heart of man that is the problem.

Greed is the great American sin. I refer to the CEOs who take multi-million dollar bonuses while laying off workers.  I refer to those who refuse to tax the rich and call attempts to help the poor "socialism." But I also believe it infests us all on every economic level-the striving, the focus on "security," the striving for promotions, and the need to accumulate savings for a future that may or may not arrive.

We all work to live. The key problem words are focus and goal. When wealth takes up our deepest striving we are in trouble.

When generosity is weakened, we are in trouble. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels makes it clear that God has a preference for the poor and values generosity. Yet, our culture has a dozen ways to discourage charity. Don't give to panhandlers, they are fake or they will use it for drugs. How do you know that charity is legitimate? Don't enable that nephew, he'll fail again. You name it.

When anything takes our focus off God, we're in trouble. The great commandments are "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Greed is a sin against both of those.

Last but not least I cycle back to the poor in spirit. It doesn't mean going to the extreme and selling all you have as Jesus advised the rich young man (though that could be a heroic good, provided God led you to it). It does mean treating your wealth as on loan from God for his purposes, and being indifferent to it as it applies to your own sake. 

The Boy With the Fish

 

"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"

                                                  John 6:9  

         

  Aside from the Resurrection, the feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle recounted in all four gospels. It is interesting to me that it is about feeding the hungry. Generally in this story and its commentary (such as the homily at today's Mass) the focus is on the apostles and their relative faith or lack of it, on their questioning. It struck me this morning that my position is more like the boy with the fish.

He didn't understand the big picture

He knew he couldn't solve the problem of 5,000 hungry people

He knew he couldn't fix the world around him

He wasn't an apostle or any sort of important official

BUT

He didn't sit quietly feeling helpless

He didn't ask questions

He did the good he could

He generously offered what little he had

From that Jesus, who is the person whose job it is to save the world, fed the multitude while the apostles did the big job of distributing. And the boy? I suspect he sat quietly while it happened,

In the great Theo-drama of salvation history past, present, and future, my role is tiny, but He expects me to do the good I can in the place where He has put me, for the people He has sent, with the gifts He has given me.

It's pretty simple in the end.