A Year of Grief

One year without our boy.  Time has stood still and flown by at the same time.  It’s like we live in another dimension where time is not the same.  

We miss everything about him.

His smile.

His laugh.

His eyes.

The way he purposely annoyed his siblings.

His jokes.

His love of Chick fil A on a Friday afternoon.

Our rides to school in the morning, always commenting on the beauty of the sky or the mountains.

His pretending to play flute at the school orchestra recital.

His missing water bottles.

His making us late everywhere.

The way he tried to hide his smile when we paid him a compliment.

His dirt bike and camping trips with dad.

His new love of Nike’s.

The way he glued our family together.

His love of friends.

Being his taxi.

Watching him and Wesley throw the ball at each other before bed until someone got hurt.

Watching his football practice.

Hearing him talk about a girl at school.

Hearing how he made a teacher laugh when he was acting up.

And we mourn:

That he won’t be getting his license this year;

That he won’t ever drive Wesley to and from school;

That he’ll never see his siblings marry;

That he won’t have a wife and kids of his own;

That every holiday and celebration will have a shadow that lingers over it;

That we have to live the rest of our earthly lives without him.  

But we’ve learned a lot in this past year too.  Grief is a better teacher than prosperity.

We’ve learned:

That we have a large network of people around us that love us and faithfully pray for us and would drop everything to come mourn with us.

That vulnerability begets vulnerability.  Living like you have it all together builds walls.  Being honest about your struggles, allows others to share their own struggles with you.  

That we are not the only ones on this hard journey.  There are hurting people all around us.

That it was worth riding the ups and downs of the marriage rollercoaster for 30 years because I can’t imagine doing this without Noy.  

That grief is not linear.  There are good days and hard days and good hours and hard hours within those good and hard days.  I can cry in the midst of joy and have joy in the midst of the pain.  The joy and grief lines are all blurred together some days.

That grief cannot be an island.  Left by myself, my mind can go to some really hard places of despair.  Having someone to help ground me and not let me stay there has been such a blessing.

Stepping into someone else’s grief and asking how they are doing or just letting them know you’re thinking about them takes courage.   I was terrible at this before knowing grief myself.  Often we don’t reach out because we don’t know what to say or we’re scared that we will evoke emotions that will make the conversation uncomfortable.  It won’t.  We have felt every emotion every day and we’ve learned to navigate them.  It’s comforting to know people are thinking about us and haven’t forgotten.  We have been so blessed in this area.  Friends, family and many of Julian’s friends have the courage to check in on us and tell us they are praying for us.  It has been a good lesson for me on how to be there for others.

The words we speak, or don’t speak matter and can have lasting implications.  What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back and say words I didn’t and take back words I did say.  

Life is fragile, a “fleeting shadow,” a “mist that appears for a little while then vanishes.” Remembering that tomorrow isn’t promised AND that each day is a gift keeps us from being too high or too low. 

There are plenty of other lessons we’ve learned through grief, but the most impactful one is that God truly is present in the midst of our suffering.  There’s a place that is sacred and holy and unattainable by any other means.  I wouldn’t wish this grief on anyone, yet at the same time, I’d never want to go back to the person I was before knowing it personally.   How in the world can we wake up today with joy in the midst of pain?  Only Christ!

I am so thankful for everyone of you who have walked through this past year with us.  For those who have spent hours on their knees on our behalf.  What a testament for each of you in the way you are holding up the body of Christ.  “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”  (I Corinthians 12:26)  You have suffered with us for an entire year and we don’t have adequate words to thank you for that but THANK YOU!  You have truly taught us how to love others well.  I wish a year marked the end of our grief, but we are on this journey till we reach our own deathbeds.  

I’ll end with another Spurgeon quote because it seems appropriate:

“Death is the last and best physician, which cures all diseases and sins - the aching head and the unbelieving heart. Sin was the midwife which brought death into the world; and death shall be the grave to bury sin! O the privilege of a believer!”

Love you all!

xo

Dawn