As we walked out of our temporary apartment just one mile from the children’s hospital, all I could do was marvel the happenings of normal life around me. We had rented this particular place to be as close to our son as possible. My husband and I were making our way once again to the cardiac intensive care unit but this walk was different from all the previous walks on this same route. We had lost our precious boy the day before to heart disease. I turned toward my husband and said, “They have no idea what we’ve just been through,” referring to the family on the sidewalk near us.
Our routine walk to the hospital continued and it included going through a beautiful college campus with students bustling all around. Part of me wanted to lay on the freezing ground and die while the other part of me wanted to shake them and scream, “We lost our son! We lost our son! Don’t you know? We lost our son yesterday!”
Grief is such a strange journey that causes emotions of intense isolation but simultaneously the desire for the recognition of one you lost. Over the last year, I’ve gotten to know other families who have lost children and there is often a similar feeling in that we wished we had some way to show what we have walked through to those around us. A sign, symbol or medal that would signify to handle us delicately for just a while. It is not that we need recognition or acknowledgment for ourselves as much as the desire for the one we loved and lost to be part of the conversation even with someone who may not know the whole story.
I’ve read recently about how different cultures express signs of grief and loss. Many cultures embrace wearing black to the funeral or memorial service while in places like India and the Philippines, the grieving
While living with grief is often invisible, the weight of it can be consuming at times and makes doing normal life much heavier. In the midst of the sadness, I’ve tried to joke that for a year after significant loss, we should all receive a free pass to hard things like paying bills and cleaning. I would also welcome free meals from Chick-fil-a.
I don’t necessarily want our culture to dictate that our family wear black for a period of months and I’m not cool enough for a tattoo. I do proudly wear a special necklace that honors my son and I’m always happy to tell others about him when they notice it.
But what is this desire or need for an outward sign of grief? Is it simply that I need a free pass this year (and let’s be honest, for many years)? In my lowest, self-pitying moments, I have felt entitled and like I should have fewer problems this year but that is not real life nor a healthy perspective.
I’ve actually found myself looking for signs of grief in others’ faces. When a lady yelled at me at the grocery store, I wondered, “If she knew my son just passed away, would she treat me this way? What has hardened her heart? What loss has she gone through?”
Then this question hit me.
If our culture did have a specific wearable sign for grief, wouldn’t we all be wearing it?
We’ve all lost someone we love dearly through death, divorce, or broken relationships. We’ve all buried abilities, dreams, and desires. We are all living in this broken world where loss is inevitable.
As someone who is a follower of Jesus, I can know that this broken world is not the whole story. The grief is still so heavy but I pray that as Tim Keller says, “Our lives, when shaped by God and His Word, should begin to have a loveliness about them.” We aren’t excluded just because we’ve suffered great loss.
Loveliness.
Now that’s a beautiful sign.
My prayer has become that my sign of grief would be of deep compassion and acknowledgment of others’ losses. It would be so much easier for my sign or symbol to be a harden, detached, bitter heart but because of Christ, I pray that I will actively look for others who are also carrying the heavy burden of grief and they will see my sign that says, “I see you. Grace and mercy, my friend. You are not alone.”
