I sat in my car, crying quietly. I had just said goodbye to my grandmother the day before, and the loss of her was still a raw and stinging wound. We had shared the news on social media, and kind and wonderful friends had begun to reach out, by text and phone. Most were generous and comforting and loving and told me how very sorry they were for my loss. But sprinkled among those helpful words were some less helpful ones, such as the friend who told me, “We are SO HAPPY for you. Your grandmother is dancing at the throne of Jesus. Isn’t this amazing?”
I lost my phone signal abnormally quickly after those words were uttered.
I would never wish my grandmother back. I believe, to the extent that I understand eternity, that she is at peace, no longer struggling to breathe through fluid-filled lungs, no longer confused and frustrated by the things and people she can’t remember. I would not bring her back to this planet to suffer and hurt. But I can hold that certainty in one hand and still feel great sorrow: Sorrow that she would not be here for Christmas. Sorrow that she’d never again be as excited as a little child to go out to breakfast with me. Sorrow that all the memories I’d made and the photos I’d taken had reached their last. There would be no more.
I’ve experienced this to a lesser extent when I post on social media about the grief of letting a child go off to college. Yes, I know he will come home for the holidays. Yes, I know he will still visit, still call and text. But there is an ending: No more five people filling up the family car. No more buying everything in threes at the store as I always have. No more marking a recipe to try because I know how much he’ll love it. The chapter of my life that I have counted the most important, most precious, is ending, and that doesn’t mean that life won’t still be meaningful, but there is still a grief and a loss of its own kind.
Maybe you are experiencing your own sadness, your own changing season. If people have tried to cheer you with empty platitudes, let me offer my own profound words to you:
I am so sorry.
This sucks.
I am grateful to those who have offered the same words to me over this last painful year. Maybe our NEW New Year’s Resolution (since let’s be honest: we’ve already given up on the others by now) can be to allow people to feel the full spectrum of grief’s emotions. To stop trying to fix it. To just be present in the sorrow. To listen. To send a card months down the road when everyone else has left the freshly-turned earth of the grave and has moved on with life. To say, “I remember. I see you. I love you.”
That’s really all that a grieving person wants. Well, that and a Starbucks gift card. Which means each of us already has all that we need to meet them right in their grief. No platitudes required.
