Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Good Grief

Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth
~ Job 3:1

Look up grief on the internet and you'll likely find images of some sad, little faces with a solitary tear, or maybe a black and white photo of some contemplative-looking person standing at the end of a pier looking out to sea.  They are such peaceful images, reminding me of the beginning of the serenity prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."

When you're grieving a terminal illness or relationship, don't you just long to float away on the calm waters of serenity?  Me neither!

It's more like those stories you hear of someone drowning and hypothermic who, after a few gulps of water, gets a sense of inner bloating, is swallowed up and sinks into oblivion. They fought like hell first.

Acceptance, the destination of grieving, is not so much a state of mind as the fruit of one of the most challenging, gut-wrenching, heart-rending and ugly processes I know; and the cost is huge, nothing short of everything.  All your hopes and dreams, your visions of a future, throw in idealism and optimism while you're at it, and don't forget about hope and your will to live.  All of it.  Are you serene yet?

I remember when I was a kid and I had to get a "booster shot".  For some strange reason, and in a manner which was entirely out of character at the time, I decided to run.  The doors being locked, I ended up running from the nurse and her poised needle, back and forth between her and the walls, around in circles like a moth in a jar until I finally rushed into the arms of my bewildered mother, wrapping myself around her, crying, "I don't want to!"  My mother hugged me, then quietly and reassuringly answered back, "Patti, it's done."  At first I thought I was being liberated from the proposed torture but then I realized in fact the nurse had already jabbed me while I was in the throes of making a scene. It was a miracle.

Good grieving is more like that I think. Crying and flailing about risking humiliation as you flap around helplessly like a caught and gutted fish until you come, mercifully, to rest.  It's pretty good from there.

God grant me the courage.