GSnow’s post on reddit.com went viral as his words gave expression to the grief of thousands who read it. You can find all of his post online if you google, “An old man explains grief,” but I want to share just part of the wisdom his life, and death, experiences have taught him. He parallels grief to surviving a shipwreck, and part of his post says, In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find that the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breath, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything… and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
I have shared GSnow’s words with many who are walking their own journey of grief, and they are quick to validate his insights. GSnow acknowledges that the waves of grief come farther apart and lessen in intensity as the grief journey passes through time and healing – a healing that still loves, still remembers, and still holds a tug to re-unite. As believers, holding tightly to the God who loves and comforts, and gives His grace, or being carried close to the Father heart that knows and feels our tears and the pain of our loss, the sense of surviving a shipwreck is still very real. And for the believer, the triggers still come, for months, for years, for decades, for a lifetime. Initially, in those early months and years, we may expect the triggers. We still see the empty chair, sleep in a bed where one pillow grows cold, watch a child’s friends go to the next grade level, hit the winning home run, or we smell the scents that almost seemed to define our loved one. Grief slows life down to a crawl, but we do begin to walk, and then we do begin to make changes. Although we will forever carry our loved one in our heart as our loved one lives and delights within all the perfections of Heaven, our earthly lives transition and we express those lives in new and different ways. And the waves can still descend, and they can descend with an unexpected heaviness, a deep heaving sorrow that longs to hold our loved one close. I can enter the joy of a young and beautiful bride, expectantly walking the aisle on her wedding day, eager to exchange the arm of her Dad for all a young man offers her as they begin their lives as one. The tears that come though are tears of sadness, longing for the presence of our own daughter who will never walk a wedding aisle with her Dad, or dance the father-daughter dance with him, warmly wrapped in the memories of childhood. The wave was triggered, and it crashes, soaking me to the depths of my sometimes still fragile heart.
And it is then I find my comfort where I have learned to find my comfort – in the constant, unchanging presence of my Father-God. Honest with my emotions, my memories, my thoughts, my longings, but letting Him carry me close to His heart one more time. And, it will probably happen again, but my God is real, and my God cares, and when the wave comes again, whenever that may be, my God will still be real, and close, and comforting.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Isaiah 40:11; Isaiah 41:13; Isaiah 46:4; Psalm 23:4; 2 Corinthians 1:2-4)
