The Surprise of Grief

This evening I went to Cityview for the “stream team.” Prior to Cityview, I would have thought “the Stream team” was a group of guys who went trout fishing together in Colorado.

I am aware that on the cusp of being old—well ok, already having arrived at old, technology is really amazing. Trying to reactive my software of “Simply Speaking” which I used when my right shoulder had reconstructive surgery, I discovered I has lost the dvds, but more than that, the practice software I use Google Suites, particularly Google Documents, offers the same technology. Now knowing it is out there and making it work—two different things.

On the way to the church this evening, for some reason, I was thinking about Mom. Grief is like that. You are on the way to somewhere totally unrelated to your loss, or you are thinking about something totally unrelated to your loss, and bam! It is right there.

I have never been able to understand the way my brain works, and even learning more and more about how my brain works does not fully explain—how my brain works. Yet, this I know, something deep within me, connected going to church with my loss and for a moment I was right back in the grief of my loss.

I do know enough to know this is the landscape of grief. It seems to come out of nowhere, and cuts you off at the knees, and you will never really ever make the connection your mind made when it connected those two thoughts.

Perhaps it is my mom was the one who took me to church. She is the one I sat with in church. She was the verbal spiritual guide in our family(my Dad, like many men are shy about their faith but it is real to them none the less). This was the first time I had actually been in “church” since she died. And this was only for a rehearsal for Sunday.

There are some things I know about grief. I know it has a course to run. No matter how much I may deny it, or dismiss it, it must run its course. I know that grief will show up in the places I have associated with my loss. The body remembers when I don't. I know that such times are necessary and therapeutic if I am ever able to work through my loss. I know there is an end point that can only be reached by walking through the dark valley overshadowed by death. I know that as David shared with us, “You are with us, Your rod and Your Staff they comfort us.”

So tonight was a step, an unexpected step, but a step none the less.