Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

grief

Why We Need to Feel Our Grief

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“You’re going to feel some pressure,” the doctor murmured as he inserted the needle into my elbow. Turns out “some pressure” was the euphemism of the century. What I actually felt during the five-minute platelet injection was teeth-gritting, fist-clenched agony.

By the time the short procedure was over, hot tears were slipping down the sides of my face, along my hairline, over the edge of my jaw and down my neck, where they dripped one at a time, slowly and steadily like fluid in an IV bag, onto the white sheet beneath me.

Much to my surprise, once the tears started, they didn’t stop. Neither the doctor nor the nurse knew quite what to make of my silent but persistent weeping. The nurse thrust a fist full of tissues into my hand. The doctor advised ice, two Extra Strength Tylenol and limited elbow movement. And then they both fled, the nurse urging “take your time,” before pulling the door closed with a quiet click behind her.

I cried as I retrieved my purse from the hook and gingerly slipped it over the shoulder of my good arm.

I cried as I hurried through the waiting room, chin tucked, hair shielding my streaming eyes so as not to scare the living daylights out of the patients awaiting their own appointments.

I cried as I drove home, wrangling the steering wheel with one hand.

I was still crying as I tucked myself into the corner of the sofa, cradling my throbbing elbow with a cupped palm.

It was only then that it occurred to me that I might be crying over something other than my elbow.

Earlier that morning I had published the blog post I had written about my decision to quit book writing. As I’d sat in the orthopedist’s waiting room, I’d pulled the post up on my phone to read some of the comments that had begun to accumulate.

I didn’t expect any “big feelings.” Though I’d published the post about my decision that morning, I’d made the actual decision weeks before. Choosing to leave traditional book-writing and publishing was a decision that, after careful discernment, I believed in my heart was right and good. I acknowledged there was sadness – I even named it grief in the post – but mostly what I felt in the aftermath of the decision, and as I wrote the blog post about it, was relief, an unburdening.

Until, that is, the orthopedist’s needle pricked something else far beneath flesh, bone and tendon.

What began as a tearful reaction to unexpected physical pain crossed an invisible threshold. My tears at the sudden, sharp stab of the needle deep in the soft tissue of my elbow opened a portal of sorts into which I tumbled headlong, like a time-space traveler hurtling into an unfamiliar dimension.

The tears prompted by the unexpected jolt of searing pain opened the way to the sorrow and loss I had acknowledged in words but hadn’t actually allowed myself to feel.

Experts say that we Enneagram Type 3s are the least aware of and in touch with our feelings. Until recently I would have told you that I was a person who was very in touch with her feelings, thank you very much. But I am beginning to see this might not be entirely true. I am beginning to realize that just because you say you feel something and even name it publicly doesn’t mean you’ve taken the time and space to actually feel it – to wade into that sorrow and allow yourself to experience the confusing, uncomfortable, unkempt mess of it.

The truth is, it’s hard and deeply uncomfortable to feel, really feel, pain. No one actually wants to sit with and in pain. And yet, I believe the only path to true healing, growth and transformation is to do exactly that – to step into the pain, to stay in it and lean into it for as long as it takes. As so many wise people have said, the only way out of grief is through it.

After the emotional ungluing in the orthopedist’s office, I spent the rest of the week quietly and slowly reading through every beautiful, heartfelt, kind, loving, and encouraging email, blog post comment, Facebook message and tweet I received in the wake of my announcement about leaving traditional publishing. There were A LOT. (thank you!!!)

My inclination was to rush, to skim over these notes of kindness, empathy and compassion. I wanted to read through them fast, to get it over with in order to keep myself at arm’s length from whatever emotions might begin to rise to the surface.

But I didn’t do that. Instead, I read each message slowly and thoughtfully and responded personally to many of them. As I read and replied, I let myself receive and feel all the feelings – gratitude, love, joy, relief, regret, sorrow, fear, disappointment, grief. I stayed in the feelings, leaned into them – into their unruliness, into their stubborn refusal to be managed and contained.

It was uncomfortable and unfun to feel the real brunt of this loss. And yet, I believe it was an important and necessary step toward trusting in something that is, for right now, beyond what I can see.

When You’re Not Feeling Very Adventy

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I’ll be honest: I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent.  I don’t have that sense of anticipation, the expectation that is often present in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’m just…here. Slogging. Going through the motions. Checking chores off my list. I feel a heaviness inside, an unease I can’t quite put my finger on.

I find myself wishing it were Lent instead. Somehow these lackluster, angsty feelings seem more appropriate for those somber, mid-winter days.

Sixteen years ago on a sultry August day, during the early hours of labor with Noah, my first-born, I sat outside on the back patio, my hands resting on my big belly as it tightened and released, tightened and released. I called friends and chatted happily. Later I paced the backyard, deep-breathing as the cicadas sawed the thick humidity. I thought about my baby boy, my heart, head and gut a tangle of nervous, jangling joy.

Fourteen hours later I lay in a hospital bed in the dark. The nurse had piled three blankets on top of me. They were warm from the dryer, but still, I shook uncontrollably from somewhere deep in my core, like seismic waves rippling out from an epicenter. It wasn’t cold exactly, and I wasn’t in pain – the epidural had largely alleviated that — but something unfamiliar and frightening was happening to my body.

“You’re in transition,” the nurse told me, patting my shoulder as I gripped the sheets.

I was afraid. Around me the voices of encouragement receded. Everything grew hazy, the end point a dim prick of light. I lost focus. The goal seemed far away, unreachable. So fixed was I on the fear and the unfamiliar, I lost sight of everything else, including the baby boy I was about to birth into the world.

Transition…not the most appealing part of labor. Transition leaves you feeling shaky, out of control, lost and anxious. Transition dims your focus, blurs the way, has you gripping the bed sheets. Transition is when the hard, necessary work gets done, the work that will lead you out the other side again. But it’s not fun. It’s lonely and scary.

When You're Not Feeling Very Adventy

I feel like I am in some sort of transition right now, though I don’t know what I am transitioning out of and in to. It’s not as frightening as that first labor transition by any stretch, and yet, there is still a palpable sense of unease.

I recently read some verses in John that resonated with me. Something kept bringing me right back to the start of the paragraph to read and reread the same words again:

“Your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy, that a child is born into the world. So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:20-22)

Your time has come, says the Lord. Now is your time of grief.

Maybe you’re like me right now. Maybe you’re not feeling particularly Adventy this Advent. Maybe you’re feeling a little lost, a bit afraid, lonely, weary, shaky. Maybe you’re doing the hard work of transition. Maybe you’re not seeing Jesus very clearly right now when it seems like everyone else is.

It’s okay. Those words I read in John? Those words are from God, telling us that it’s okay.

Now is my time of grief. And the timing may be less than perfect, it being Advent and all, but now is the time nonetheless.

There’s hope. God still sees me, and I will see him again. And we will rejoice, Jesus assures me, for no one can take away our joy.

*This is actually an edited repost that was featured in the December issue of Gather magazine. When I re-read it this week, though, it resonated with me, because truth be told, I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent. I hope, if you’re in a similar place, it will offer you a bit of solace. Peace, friends. 

 

Practicing the Ministry of Presence

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Hi friends – I’m still on a blogging break, but I wanted to share my monthly column I wrote for the Journal Star with you. Thanks for your patience and grace as I take a little breather from (most of) my writing.

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Three weeks ago, the 33-year-old son of one of my father’s closest friends drowned while swimming in a small Massachusetts lake. According to reports, he jumped from a boat into the water and never resurfaced.

My parents were sleeping when the phone rang. At that point the body had not yet been found and recovered from the lake. My father’s friend, Don, and his wife had learned their son was missing and presumed dead when a police officer had knocked on their door that night. My dad was one of the first people they called.

After he got off the phone, my father dressed quickly and drove the short distance to his friend’s house, where he spent some time with him and his wife. The next morning my dad was at the lake with Don and his wife when the divers resumed their search. He was there again the following morning when the divers finally recovered the body.

Later, in a phone conversation with my dad, I asked him what he had done during all the hours he had spent at the lake. “Nothing really,” he said. “I was just there.”

My dad said most of the time he had sat on a bench a little ways away from the beach where the search and recovery operation was centered. Don came and sat next to him from time to time. They would talk a little bit, and then Don would get up from the bench to be with his wife or another one of his family members.

“He said he wanted me there, so I was there,” my dad said.

Often our inclination is to run in the opposite direction in the face of another person’s suffering or grief. We tend to make excuses for ourselves — “She would rather be alone…The family needs privacy right now…There’s nothing I can really do to help…” – because we are uncomfortable and afraid. When we do summon the courage to show up, we often feel compelled to do something or say something we think, or at least hope, will be helpful.

This isn’t to say that making a meal or mowing the lawn or offering prayers and condolences aren’t valuable things to do when someone you know is suffering. They are. But sometimes, especially in the earliest stages when grief is still registering as shock, simply coming alongside someone who is suffering when everyone else is turning away can be a precious gift.

Baptist minister Reverend Jeffrey Brown calls this practice of showing up the “ministry of presence.” “I find that among the most effective ways to do ministry is to shut up and just be there,” Brown said.

My dad and Don have known each other for 46 years. They both worked as guidance counselors at the same small high school in Connecticut. They are close in the way men of their generation often are. They attend one another’s milestone events, like retirement parties and children’s weddings. They go out to dinner together with their wives, or visit over beers on the back deck. They don’t often talk a lot about personal stuff. Yet my dad was the one Don called when tragedy struck. And my dad showed up.

Sitting on a lakeside bench in the background hour after hour doesn’t sound like much of an offering in the face of unimaginable tragedy. But in his small, unobtrusive way, my dad practiced the ministry of presence. He was there for his friend, and his presence — simple, quiet, and unadorned — was a gift.

 

Be Gentle Always

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Be Kind

I stopped short in the driveway and stood staring. It all looked so normal, so everyday — the potted impatiens she’d planted in front of the garage, the Windexed windows, the kitchen light glowing inside. No one would have known what was going on behind that front door.  No one would have guessed from the outside that there was grieving and sickness, tears and joy mingled bittersweet.

I watched the grandkids play tag, climb the river birch tree. They yelled and laughed, falling in piles on the grass.

Later that same week I drove to church early on a Sunday morning. I stopped at red and then accelerated, and just at the last second I saw the car turn left in front of me. I slammed the brakes and glimpsed through the windshield a fist raised, mouths forming angry words, faces leaning forward, disgusted.

What I’d absent-mindedly taken for a stop sign was actually a red traffic light. I’d been distracted, thinking about labored breathing and cool extremities and the other signs of imminent death my husband had catalogued for me the night before on the telephone.  The couple in the oncoming car had turned on the green arrow; they’d had the right of way. The angry look on their faces accused, “Pay attention, stupid girl!”

I didn’t blame them for the angry words I couldn’t hear. Not really. I’ve done the same myself – muttered a searing response to the driver who cut sharply into my lane, the cashier who seemed grumpy and impolite.

I didn’t blame the couple in the car for their angry gestures because they simply didn’t know. They didn’t know that my driving error wasn’t intentional. They didn’t know that I was simply distracted by suffering and worry.

It would be easier if we all resembled Atlas, the weight of the world plainly strapped to our backs. It would be easier to be kind to others if we clearly saw what they were carrying – the grief, the sorrow, the lost job, the estranged spouse, the addicted child, the dying mother. But we don’t know, we can’t always see the pain and suffering. We can’t always see what the other person is carrying.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” No one knows for sure who said it first. Some say Plato. Some say Philo of Alexandria. But the point is a good one.

We must always aim to be gentle with one another. Kind. Tolerant. Forgiving. We must always try to give one another the benefit of the doubt. Because at one point or another, the person who carelessly cuts you off at the red light, who hands you your change with barely a nod, who snaps at work, who doesn’t wave back – that person is carrying the weight of the world, a weight you can’t see. And your gentleness may be the balm that calms and soothes, the bit of peace that person needs.

{This is a repost of a piece I wrote five years ago this month, when my mother-in-law Janice was dying. It was a tough time, but that time also helped me understand why it’s important to try to give others the benefit of the doubt, to offer them gentleness, even when their actions and behavior don’t seem to make sense. I had looked fine on the outside; no one would have known the grief I was carrying in my heart.}

When God Doesn’t Change…But You Do {and a book giveaway}

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A few years ago I stumbled on a blog called An Inch of Gray and was instantly smitten with the writing and the writer. Anna See, as she called herself then, was laugh-out-loud funny one moment, poignant and reflective the next. I couldn’t get enough of her writing.

Plus I liked her. A lot. I wanted to be real-life friends with her. I felt like we’d do well as friends. We’d laugh a lot, I imagined, and complain about our husbands’ bafoonery from time to time and maybe toss out the occasional curse word.

And then one day I clicked over to An Inch of Gray and read a devastating announcement. Anna’s twelve-year-old son, Jack, had been killed in a freak accident. Her little boy was gone forever, and Anna and her family were left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. I still remember staring at the photograph of Jack’s face on my computer screen, my brain unable to process what I was reading.

Honestly, I don’t exactly know why I kept returning to Anna’s blog after that. Her posts in the days and weeks and months following Jack’s death were almost too painful to read. And yet, I couldn’t help myself. I liked Anna. I loved Anna. I wanted to “be there,” as silly and ridiculous as that sounds.

I noticed something, too. In spite of the almost-palpable pain in her posts, there was something else in Anna’s words, something that awed me. Her faith and hope were still there.

Yeah, they’d been beaten and bruised. No, they didn’t look nearly the same. But Anna’s faith and hope were there, shining like a beacon for the rest of us, comforting us, steadying us — even those of us who had never even met Jack in person and yet still grieved the loss of him.

Anna Whiston Donaldson has written a book — a beautiful, real, raw, hope-filled, faith-filled book about being Jack’s mom, about losing him too soon and about putting the pieces of life back together with her husband and daughter, as best they can. Not only is Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love a stunning piece of writing, it’s a testament to the power of faith and the power of God’s love. This book is a must-read, friends.

Yes, it’s tough. Yes, you’ll cry. But it’s worth it; it’s well, well worth it.

AnnaWhistonDonaldsonAnna was so gracious to answer a few of my questions about grief, hope and the process of writing Rare Bird. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to welcome her to the blog today:

Anna, one of the themes that runs through Rare Bird is the idea that God is much different, much bigger, than the box we often put him in. How has your experience of Jack’s death and your subsequent grief informed or perhaps transformed your understanding of God?

Anna: Well, I know that GOD hasn’t changed, but I have. I have begun to let go of a need to understand absolutely everything about Him and instead let His majesty and mystery stand. I’ve gone from someone who got pretty caught up in church and less caught up in God, to believing that when we get to Heaven, a lot of what we put our focus on as Christians—denominational concerns, worship styles, etc will fall away as chaff to the ground. I’d love to start living this way now.

Talk to us about writing Rare Bird – I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. Did the process of writing the book impact your grieving process?

Anna: Well, I started writing Rare Bird right after the one year “crapiversary” of losing our son. In many ways, I was sorting through and grieving in real time as I wrote.  I did not know how the book would “end,” but I figured it wouldn’t be all tied up with a neat bow. I found writing Rare Bird to be immensely helpful to me by getting my feelings down, and I hope that will be helpful to readers, either who are grieving themselves, or who better want to understand what early grief is like. I also think it will be a good read for any person who finds him/herself living a life far removed from the one he/she “signed up for.”

As for the writing process, the book really bubbled up inside me as I sat at a Panera restaurant at my laptop. First I had to figure out what the book wasn’t (my whole life story, a how-to book, etc) and eventually I discovered what it was.

You frequently infuse a wry, sometimes sarcastic sense of humor in your writing, especially in your blog posts. Do you use humor purposefully, as a kind of literary device, or is humor more of an organic product of the writing process for you?

Anna: Humor just flows out of me– it’s never a conscious choice. My family doesn’t think I’m very funny at all, so I’m glad you have seen at least a little humor come through on the blog. Okay, I take that back, my sister thinks I’m HILARIOUS!

As a person who has struggled with doubt and often doesn’t always fully trust God, I have to ask: where does your deep trust in God come from? And do you think that kind of trust can be found or learned, or is it simply an innate part of who you are

Anna: I’ve made a conscious choice to trust God. But that doesn’t mean I’m not mad and super disappointed in the way things are turning out. This is NOT the life or legacy I wanted for my son, even though many positives have come out of his short life. I am not sure where this trust comes from. And it doesn’t exist in an absence of doubt. I still doubt. But I’m choosing to trust that God has a better plan. My alternative choice is more alienating and lonely; it’s bitter and angry and closed, so I choose to trust.

A little bit of a lighter question: Tell us about your writing habits. Do you write every day? What’s your writing routine? Where do you find inspiration? What’s one piece of advice you might offer other writers?

Anna: I jot ideas down on scraps of paper when I’m out and about. When I started blogging, I wrote almost every day. I am fairly undisciplined now that the book is finished, and I’d like to get back into the habit of writing daily before I lose my confidence! One piece of advice, which I don’t follow, is JUST WRITE.

And finally, what is Jack’s legacy? And what do you hope yours will be?

Anna: Jack has a way of getting into people’s hearts, even those who have never met him. He was a genuine person, without guile or selfishness. I think his legacy is that people will turn to God in times of trouble, and cherish their families even more, because they realize how much our family has lost in losing him. I think they might consider more of God’s marvelous, mysterious ways because of Jack. It seems that Jack and I were somehow partners in writing Rare Bird. And any good that comes out of the book belongs to him. I hope my legacy will be that I used a gift God gave me to bring Him glory. That said, of course I’d rather have both of my children with me on earth, than any kind of legacy, and I know God gets that, too!

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Rare Bird officially releases tomorrow, but I am so glad to be able to offer a copy of Anna’s memoir here on the blog today. To enter the random drawing, please follow the instructions on the “Rafflecopter” entry form below. [Email subscribers: please click here and scroll to the bottom of the post to enter the giveaway]

From the back cover: 
With this unforgettable account of a family’s love and longing, Anna will draw you deeper into a divine goodness that keeps us—beyond all earthly circumstances—safe.

This is a book about facing impossible circumstances and wanting to turn back the clock. It is about the flicker of hope in realizing that in times of heartbreak, God is closer than your own skin. It is about discovering that you’re braver than you think.

“A masterpiece of hope, love, and the resilience and ferocity of the human spirit.”
— From the foreword by Glennon Doyle Melton, author of Carry On, Warrior

“Profound, tender, honest—and utterly unforgettable.”
— Gretchen Rubin, author of #1 New York Times bestseller, The Happiness Project

“This is not a book; it is a kaleidoscope. With every turn of the page, a new discovery is made that forever alters your view of pain, joy, heartache, time, hope, and healing.”
— Rachel Macy Stafford, New York Times best-selling author of Hands Free Mama

a Rafflecopter giveaway