Grief
When C.S. Lewis lost his wife, he wrote that losing a loved one is like having a leg amputated; "either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he'll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has 'got over it.' But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down, and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off; Duties too. At present, I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again."
Lewis's description of grief is one of the best I have read. Losing a loved one is like losing a leg, the wound may heal, but the leg will never grow back. You will always have that absence in your life, and you will always walk with a limp.
When we lose a loved one, there is no right way to grieve or timeline to track. When my dad died, I was standing on the roof of the Wesley Foundation discussing plans for the coming school year. I drove home calmly and remember thinking to myself, "I must be in denial." I told my wife about my dad's passing over the phone, and she asked more questions than I wanted to think about; I became angry. I then thought to myself, "this must be stage 2; anger." Before I arrived home, I bargained with God in hopes of getting stage 3 of the grief process out of the way. As entered my house, I marveled at how quickly I was proceeding through the stages. All the while knowing they do not work like that.
We can't even expect that the stages of grief will go in order and remain in order over a long period of time.
If I were to draw a picture of the stages it would look more like a ball made of rubber bands than a linear line, or even a circle. Regardless of the shape, we do not move through all of the stages on our drive home from work. My entertaining this possibility was proof of my being in denial.
I was never comfortable with grief. I had taught others about grief, reassured others it was okay to cry and told them the pain they experienced was normal. Everyone else may experience all of these emotions, but not me, or so I thought.
I would soon discover why they say grief is like waves in a storm.
I walked upstairs to my room, still calm, and fell facedown onto my bed and wailed. I groaned in pain and anger; I felt like I was suffocating; wave after wave smashed against me, and each time I thought the storm was subsiding, more waves would come to knock me flat on my face.
It has been two years since my dad died. Over time, the waves have gotten smaller, and they come further apart. But they still come. The waves no longer knock me off of my feet, and more often than not my tears are accompanied by smiles and good memories. Even as I smile, and the good memories go by, I am reminded of loss.
I wish that I could go back in time to any place that my dad might be, and believe me, I have tried, but so far that hasn't worked.
When I go out of town, Maria will sometimes send me a picture of our dog Wally, laying in the garage where my car was with the caption, “Waiting for you to come home.” I read an article once that said our pets are so excited to see us when we get home because they assume we were killed while out trying to catch their food.
I do not know if that is what they are thinking or not, but it reminds me a lot of how I feel after losing my dad. From my limited perspective on life, death, and eternity, I have all the reason in the world to expect he will not come home again, but I am still going to wait.
As C.S. Lewis's said, "I'll never be a biped again." Not in this life anyway.