Grief: Stretching into New Realities

Grieving the death of someone you love is not something to move past or get over. Each day God gives me an opportunity to speak on the subject, I do my best to express the truest essence of what mourning a loved one feels like. Last week I spoke in a community grief group as one of the members desperately grasped for the words to explain how life has changed for them. One person said, “I hate it when people say things like, you are moving into a new life.” We all agreed, then I said, “Until a person lives it, death of a loved one creates a space between you and even those loving you that makes it impossible to understand your pain.” This is one of the reasons isolation and connection with others can be challenging for the bereaved. This is also one reason why shared communities among others grieving can become such a safe place of recovering through it. Additionally, I offered a new perspective in how to communicate to others and ourselves how loss changes outlook on life. “Losing someone you love is oversimplified by looking at it as a new life – new life without them creates for a time, periods of anguish and emotional agony at even the thought of imagining tomorrow.

The death of our loved ones means living life as a completely different reality each day. This reality must be actively and intentionally chosen each minute, hour, and day at a time. It is a new reality forcing us to stretch, stretch and stretch some more against the pull to stay behind where they felt closest to us. A new reality is something only the Lord can help rebuild one brick one dream one hope at a time.