THE FIVE GRIEF LANGUAGES

THE FIVE GRIEF LANGUAGES

(bouncing off the five love languages)

Sarah, “… Mom, it is funny; Dad retreats to write, and you clean and cook …”  She made this comment about the different ways we handle grief over the loss of a loved one.  So, off I went to do what?  Let’s meditate and muse and write a memo!  What are the different ways people respond to grief?

1.        Write/meditate.  It helps to sort out feelings and thoughts.  Maybe it begins to make sense of troubles.

2.        Clean/help.  We do it for others to express sympathy.  We do it ourselves as therapeutic toil.

3.        Cook/eat.  The sisters at church pull out their best heart-warming recipes.  We savor the delicious morsels as we try to forget our troubles.  Sometimes, it is the thought that counts?!

4.        Give advice and pat answers.  There is a kernel of truth in most of the pat answers.  And, I am sure that folks mean well as they attempt to apply a verbal salve to some heart ache.  Often, it is best just to listen, IMHO.

5.        Listen/console.  People appreciate you just being there.  The friends of Job were doing great, until they opened their mouths.

6.        Research/RCFA.  Google.  Wiki.  Bing.  Looking for answers, we dig into cyber-consciousness.  Connecting the dots does help, some.

7.        Share experiences.  The tracks of a fellow-struggler can sometimes help as one tries to navigate out of the darkness.  But, it is not one-upmanship.  Everyone’s struggle, though similar, is unique.

8.        FB-post.  A modern aid for an ageless problem, we can use social media to communicate and console.  Friends know.  Friends show their support, their compassion.

9.        Talk-catharsis.  It helps to “get it out” of our heart by getting it out in the open.

10.      Prayer.  This is where it should start.  In the Father’s arms there is peace and a path back.

11.     

HE’D HAD ENOUGH

HE’D HAD ENOUGH

                His mama held my wife in a long hug, at the visitation.  Standing next in line, I looked into the casket, into the face of his dad, into the void.  Then I heard his mom whisper to my wife, repeatedly, “… we’ve made it through two days; we’ll make it through…” 

                Yesterday morning, the garbage collectors noticed his lifeless body as they worked their route for the day.  The police came.  Family came.  Their boy had “had enough”.  Maybe it was thoughtful to end it on the day he’d be quickly found?!  He had sat down in his back yard and left this world.  Now they stood near his casket and greeted well-wishers.

                How does one make sense of such?  For over two decades he had watched his body waste away with some nameless, crippling disease.  “Normal” was not a part of his brief adult life – no wife, no children, no job, no …

                I am twelve years further down the road, but had known him, through church.  I had been in his parents’ home for a couple of Christmas church parties.  I got his gift one year in the “dirty-santa” gift exchange, a nice, pecan pie.  Once, I made a two-hour trip with him to a church men’s retreat near Montgomery.  We talked and laughed there and back.

                Mike spoke haltingly and with stuttering jerks.  His mind was way ahead of his mouth desperately trying to keep up.  And his walk was similar.  The athlete’s body was still in there somewhere.  But, he could not quite break the huddle as he once could.

                I called a friend to confirm the rumor at the mill that Mike was gone when I first heard it.  We talked and he asked, “… what do you say?”  I remembered Psalm 103:14 – “He knows our situation…”  God, help us!