Grief is like living two lives. One is where you “pretend” everything is all right and the other is where your heart silently screams in pain.” Anonymous.
This statement has marked my lived reality these past 12 months since my mum passed away on the 22nd of January 2023. It was a Sunday and nothing at the beginning of this day of worship prepared me for that phone call from my brother later in the afternoon. The second statement is a confirmation of the finality of death. I have not seen my beautiful shooting star for an entire year. I have not heard her voice much as I have longed to hear it. Much as I loved her, I am slowly and painfully accepting that I will never see her again. My heart still aches.
I have tried so hard to understand my pain and my sorrow, trying to separate what I know to be true and what my heart feels. Many times, it is like trying to marry day and night, light and darkness, oil and water- an exercise in futility.
“Life must go on” is one of the phrases used to comfort the bereaved. It is a statement my siblings and I have used to help us move forward. I have come to realize that this statement is part of the “pretend”. If life must go on, then it’s easier to pick up and move on. So yes, we buried my mum on 1st of February 2023 and on 6th of February, I did something I did not want to. I went back to work, back to my morning drive, back to meetings, to replying to numerous emails, solving many problems, writing proposals and all that goes with running an office. I went back to Church after a couple of Sundays and went through the motions of church services. On the outside everything was all right.
My heart, on the other hand, told a different story for many months. There are days that tears just flowed and I was both unable and unwilling to stop them. I am an early riser, but there were days when getting out of bed took all the energy and willpower I could master. I normally watch what I eat, but now I really did not care what, if and when I ate. My children make fun of me a specific Bible that I read cover to cover and have done so for many years, but now I could not read my Bible and I could not pray. I am grateful to my husband who held my hand every morning and prayed for me for a couple of months. Sometimes I did not understand my emotions, I wondered if I was depressed but when I talked to my siblings, I realized we were experiencing similar ‘symptoms’. I remember one day my younger brother asking me, “why is this so painful.” I told him I think it is the umbilical cord referring to the 9 months each one of us we spent in our mother’s womb. On further reflection, I realize there was something more, we had lost our last parent. You see, we had lost our dad 6 years earlier, but we still had mum- now we have no parents. That hit us hard!
Around the fourth month, I began to take baby steps in finding my way back to God’s embrace. One morning I woke up and went to my place of prayer. I opened the Bible, not to share a word with someone in the “pretend” mode but for me. I prayed all by myself for the first time in many months. Then, something interesting happened. I felt like the Lord had been waiting for me to come to this moment, the moment of bringing myself and my sorrow to Him. I began to experience an intimacy with God that would fill me up to overflowing. So, I returned the following morning and the following morning and the next. Today, I can honestly say, the Lord has helped me. I still shed tears for my mum, I still feel empty, like a big part of me is missing, but the Lord has helped me.
What have I learned in this one year that I can share with someone who is recently bereaved?
- Mourn for your loved one. Do not suppress grief even if others may feel you are mourning too long or too hard.
- When your friends reach out to you, be open with them and allow them to comfort you and pray for you. I am so grateful for my friends who shared their own journeys of bereavement with me. They came home, they invited me to their homes and took me out. I have treasured every word of comfort and every prayer, write, serve if you can.
- Some comments will hurt you, do not take it to heart. For the most part, people mean well for the bereaved person, even when they say the wrong things. Forgive.
- Find an outlet- one of my friends would pray that I do not stay long in the ‘stone’ of sorrow. So go out for that walk. My sisters took to the gym, and I took to writing and sharing on social media.
- God is in our sorrow. I know the death of my mum took me by surprise, but it did not take God by surprise. On the 12th of January, 10 days before she died, the Lord asked one my dear friends to send me a message. She did not know what it was about, neither did I at the time. She obediently wrote, “How are you doing? Whatever it is the Lord says to tell you: it shall be well.” 10 days later we both realized the Lord wanted to prepare me. He cares. In the past one year, I have continued to experience God’s presence in numerous ways.
- Comfort others. As you receive comfort, someone else is getting the sad news of loss of a loved one. Be a source of comfort. 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 reminds us, “Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” One of the most comforting words I received soon after my mum’s funeral was from a friend who had lost his dad exactly a year earlier. In fact, he joked that when my mum arrived in heaven, she found his dad’s first birthday party going on. Beyond that he shared a scripture that has carried me through this first year.
“A mother is a shooting star who passes through your life once. Love her because when her light goes out, you will never see her again.”
This second anonymous quote I read online is a confirmation of the finality of death. I have not seen my beautiful shooting star for a full year. I have not heard her voice much as I have longed to hear it. Much as I loved her, I am slowly and painfully accepting that I will never see her again here on earth. My heart still aches, and I will carry the emptiness with me.
One of the statements my mum loved was a Biblical one. “Times and seasons belong to God” paraphrased from Daniel 2:21 and Ecclesiastes 3:1. I carry this and many words of wisdom and sweet memories. Her legacy lives in her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
There is indeed time for everything for all of us. The death of a loved one is such a poignant reminder that there is a time to be born and a time to die. May the Lord help us to live well. My mama did!
As for me, I carry on the lessons I picked from her rich life, lessons that I will be share in due course.