Tea With Grief
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A meditation, of sorts, from a few months ago.
I attended a funeral this morning to be there for someone I know marginally well, and remembered again that funerals are for the living, not the dead. Still continuing prayer for a family friend. Her husband died this past week, and although I didn’t know him all that well, my heart breaks for her.
A function of grief, perhaps.
I find that in times like these, when there are as many funerals as days in the week, that my own grief begins settling into an armchair with a chai latte to regard me and someone else with a nod and a knowing smile. When she does that, I know that neither she nor Jesus are going to let me wiggle my way out of feeling or dealing with this one.
That’s one of my strong points: wiggling my way out of uncomfortable situations. Jesus tends to react to that by grabbing my by my sleeve, tugging me back and sitting me down across from whatever I’m avoiding. Then He hands me a cup of tea and sits back to watch me stare uncomfortably over at whatever I’m supposed to deal with. This can last a while. Eventually I work up the nerve to speak to it, of it, about it. Rarely do I have the courage to touch it without further encouragement, which usually means Jesus sneaks up behind me and dumps me face-first into what I’m avoiding.
Today it is grief. Longstanding, ancient grief, the kind that gets quieter but deeper with time. And the newer, healing but raw edged grief who crops up more frequently but with less tenacity each day. It is the old grief, with the chai latte, who is sitting and staring at me now.
The deep grief is the one who I’ve met before, whose words I’ve heard, whose aches I’ve felt, whose scars I’ve touched. She is the grief who reminds me (albeit patiently) that she won’t ever go away. But she is also the one who reminds me that love is, and was, and will be worth future acquaintance with her younger cousins. This ancient grief, who has at least four decades on me, is the one who rouses herself when I might need to remember her wisdom.
This ancient grief is the one who points gently and insistently at newer grief and reminds me what grief needs. Space, she says. And time. An absence of useless platitudes. Love. Comfort. Rest. And more time.
Respectful space, she says, space to breathe and to think and to process the sorrow. To grow accustomed to its presence and to the newly created space in one’s heart; this sort of feeling can only be done alone. And time to heal, to reorganize around the big things, the urgent or immediate things, the obvious things, the things that require adaption and reaction in the moment and second. The little things will come later, and that makes them no less hard.
Shut your mouth, she tells me. You might say something stupid or useless like “it was his time” or “God needed her more,” which might be helpful for a second, but tends to evaporate if you poke it with a stick. New grief, she reminds me, likes to run around hitting things with sticks. So be there. But be there quietly.
Love. Always love. The quiet, persistent kind, that sticks around with care and compassion long after the obligatory love has passed. Love that remains after the world declares it is time to return to normal. Love for all occasions, all reactions, all the parts of healing, from sorrow to anger to bargaining to despair to peace. Love for all the way. Comfort is simple, and a part of love, she reminds me. Different each time and to each persons, yes, but simple. It means being present to pain and to Jesus and to me, she says, and moving with love inside that place where death touches life and sorrow springs from absent love.
Time. Now she nods her head and sips her tea, wagging a finger at me and looking down her nose with all the intensity of one of my former English teachers. Healing takes time, adjusting takes time, grief takes time. You must not assume another’s grief to have a time limit, and you must remember that what was once normal will never be so again, no matter how much you might want normal back. There is a new normal, and you must give time for that, as much time as grief needs. Goodness knows this old grief, with her tea and her wisdom, hasn’t faded over the last decade. Perhaps even she needs more time.
May God guard your heart but soften it from stone. May you have courage to touch the pain- your own and that of others- but not be overwhelmed by it. May you not say stupid or useless things… In any situation. May you have time, give time, or support time. May you be present in love to Jesus and to sorrow and to hurting souls. Pain, grief, love, compassion, they all demand to be felt. May we have the strength to bear them all, and to love ourselves and those around us when we are bent down by the weight of the world.
In the Name of Christ we pray.
Amen.
