Finding Strength in Grief
I received a text one day from a friend after our 4th loss. "I can’t even begin to imagine your hurt. You are such a strong woman of God. The strongest I know." I know this person very intimately, and her heart is sweet as gold, so I was okay sharing with her the true disposition of a mother’s heart after loss.
I think the world is so confused about moving forward while your heart is still in mourning. If you move forward, the world perceives you as strong. If you allow yourself to feel your feelings and face them head-on, sometimes the world sees us as weak.
I’ve had mixed feelings about the statement “you are strong" for a long time and as time has passed, it has confirmed two things to me.
Others are paying attention to how we react to grief.
They only see the surface of grief. Meaning how we emote our grief in public.
I’ve pondered back and forth and wrestled with the questions surrounding that statement. What actually gives another the perception that we are strong? Is it if we allow ourselves to feel our feelings and express them when they come, or do we suck it up, buttercup, and keep them at bay until we are behind closed doors?
No one chooses this to be a part of their story. I don’t think anyone really has a desire to be strong but to try their best to move forward. For families of child loss, we mostly struggle to accept this as a new reality of our story.
Again, I was in this place contemplating for a minute what I should say to her. On the one hand, I don’t want to hurt her, but on the other hand, so many people are so confused as to what is actually an appropriate reaction after your child dies.
Think for a minute. What is the appropriate reaction to your child dying?
I think it is actually LAMENT, not being strong and sucking it up.
But what is the definition of strength if we sit and contemplate this concept in grief?
It states that strength is the quality or state of being physically strong or the capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure.
So is moving forward strength or survival? I think it’s survival because parents of loss usually don’t feel strong they feel like they are trying to survive.
Maybe there is confusion on where that strength lies. Or maybe the confusion is the lack of compassion and empathy in the western culture. Either you carry the cross, or people feel like your grief is too much for them. None of this was in the conversation of my dear friend’s heart, but contemplating the comment “you are strong” made me go deeper to where it stems from.
Do people actually think that the strength lies in the person, or do they know where the source comes from? I don’t know. But one thing is for sure I am stunned by that comment every time it’s ever been spoken over me. I don’t believe them.
I think most mothers of loss who are told they are strong actually don’t know how to take that comment. It’s a double edge sword. Do you allow the weight of the cross to smash you, or do you accept the cross, pick it up, and attempt to carry it?
Here I was having to respond to a friend in love and charity but utter honesty. What I shared was much shorter, but I’ll give you everything that I was thinking below.
Most days, I don’t feel strong. Most of the time, I actually feel pretty weak and unable to carry this heavy cross. For me, I’ve always felt like I didn’t have a choice. You either fight through it or be paralyzed by the weight of it. So maybe it is a choice that I never wanted to choose. The choice is whether I will push through it and move forward or be crushed by death. I guess maybe there is a choice to be made. Because sometimes, I feel pretty sorry for myself and choose poorly, and some days, I choose to step forward.
Will I give up today, or do I choose to try to pick up the pieces of my heart? I am overwhelmed and I don’t want to do it. When I look around, there are too many pieces. So I beg the Lord for help with tears-stained cheeks. I want to give this pain away. Father, if it’s, you will remove this cup from me. I do not want anything to do with it. That is the true disposition of our hearts.
The pain is still there, waiting in the corner to overcome me and ravish my heart. Anything I do well is because of God’s grace. No one is stronger than the other. What makes someone strong is surrendering to our human weakness and giving it all to God. Everything I know, and still I choose wrongly. I still am tempted some days to give into the temptation of self-pity. I justify my feelings, and rightly so. The sting of death is like no other sting, like no other blow.
The weekend we experienced the loss of Eva Catherine, I felt horrible. I was so mad. Angry that I couldn’t do the very thing that God created me to do to be able to carry life as a mother. My body keeps failing me. My womb was supposed to breathe life, and here I was engulfed with the idea that it wasn’t a womb but a tomb. A death trap to any life that attempted to be nurtured inside.
I felt my heart being ripped out of my chest in pain. Those two days were horrible. I went to confession on Sunday and Mass. The truth is that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be around people. My friends knew what was happening, and I didn’t want to speak to them. I didn’t want people to watch me cry during Mass. I didn’t want to be there, but I knew that I couldn’t go on unless I went.
Throughout that day, I slowly felt better over the course of the day.
The last part was so powerful in how I responded to her. This came out of me, but it wasn’t me. It came from a depth I didn’t even know existed.
“All is His grace. I am nothing without God. But in the same breath, I am everything because of Him.”
Maybe the strength that people see in you is the mighty work of the almighty God, and that comment is actually confirming that they see Him in you. So maybe next time, I should just say, “Praise God,” instead of contemplating all the ways that I am trying my hardest to figure out where I go from here. I don’t have to, God has already written my next chapter. I should save myself much energy and time for contemplation if I just accept.
Ahhhh, my dear friend, child loss is hard.
