The Dark Side of Dying

There is a trite grief.
It's tricky to recognize, and even trickier to write about without sounding like a judgmental jerk.
Nevertheless, it's there.

It comes through in blogs, in funeral slide shows, in Christian radio, and in the comforting words of grown ups who don't know what the heck else to tell a confused 10 year old whose dad just died.

It's every single quote about heaven (which by the way, has somehow become an ethereal place in the sky where our dead loved ones are currently enjoying their favorite pastimes - playing football, playing guitar, eating BBQ with Jesus, etc.) and no matter how it is manifested; it always leaves us with the same unsettling feeling.

There is a pious grief.
It is a little easier to recognize, but still just as tricky name.

It appears as the trusting family who doesn't question their faith, even for one second...even when they lose a child... or all of their children... or the worst thing you have ever seen on Extreme Home Makeover... times a billion.

No.
They are unmoved in their joy. And they talk about it. Often.
This also leaves us feeling unsettled.

A year ago I would not have written this post, but a year ago I started seeing a therapist for my irrational fear of spiders (and carjackers and tornadoes and...) - LUCKY ME I found out all that was of course, childhood related and not at all really about the spiders.

She asked about my childhood, and as usual I shrugged it off "Well, yeah, my sister died, but I don't really remember her because I was only 3, and oh yeah, my dad died, but that was a really long time ago, and oh yes, I lost a baby at 14 weeks, but that's not why I called...what I'm terrified of is brown recluse spiders. I mean, they're the WORST!"
*Shocked therapist face*

From the moment it happened I was changed.
Forever irrevocably changed.
Whatever I was, or was going to be, or might be, would be lost the minute I watched him die.

On May 4th, 1991, I'd put down my video game and walk out of the hospital room a completely different child than I was on May 3rd, 1991.

We passed laughing doctors, down the elevator, through the doors and into the bright spring sun and a tension that was heavier than my broken heart.

What do I do with this heavy heart?

Then flowers and cards and bible verses.

What do I do with this heavy heart?

Then sweet church ladies, and words about heaven.

What do I do with this heavy heart?

Then a school principal, who tells you weeks later that the time to be sad is over.
After all, his dad just died and he's just fine.
So buck up 10-year-old kid, stop crying and do your math.

But what do I...

And there was my answer.

So I made up my mind in that moment, not to talk about it, not to think about ... him ... whom I had loved so dearly, not to cry, and not to feel.

This went on well into adulthood.
Until I thought I was losing my mind over spiders.
Because you see, it will always catch up with you...somehow, someday.

There is so much more I could talk about and write about, but writing even this much has been a huge step for me in overcoming my obsessive compulsion to control and hide my sadness.

Fellow humans, all of whom must die eventually, and particularly my fellow Christians who believe in a hereafter:
Let's not make light of dying.
Let's not shame our sadness or hide our pain.
Let's not try to all be heroes of the faith.

There is a real grief.
It is dark and it is heavy.

It is cancer and it is a tornado and it is a flood.
It is a 10-year-old girl who breaks and takes 20 years to recover.

It is sin and a cross and Jesus crying out to God in a garden.
It is a broken world and it is not supposed to be this way.

It is death...and I believe one day it will be undone.

But for now, we all live in the tension of walking between grief and the bright spring sun.

And when your heart feels heavy, it is okay to let it break.