Blessings: For the Grief We Carry

The other day as I was driving to a meeting, I took a phone call from Tristan, who was just checking in. He knows I love to hear stories about his day, so he told me that he had just gotten off the phone with a younger colleague-friend who is the father of two small children. This friend was regaling Tristan with tales of his family’s summer in Europe, where they had traveled to help with a difficult medical situation a loved one was facing. In the midst of that challenge, his wife knew it was time to wean their younger child in preparation for starting preschool, and it was proving to be a rigorous process. The child in question was not interested in weaning, and the poor mama was exhausted and feeling sad about what feels like a loss of intimacy that comes with weaning.

Without missing a beat, as if it were totally obvious and we had discussed it a million times before, I said to Tristan, “You can tell her that, a quarter of a century later, I’m still mourning the loss of that particular intimacy!” And suddenly there I was ~ driving on Route 9, riding a swell of big feelings that rose like a wave, blinking back tears as I drove to a meeting.

Well, that was a surprise! Who knew I was carrying that grief all this time? It’s certainly something I had never put into words before that moment. And of course, having my children move from infancy to the greater independence of toddlerhood, and now all the way to adulthood has been the goal, and I’ve celebrated all of the milestones as they’ve reached them. Oh, sure, maybe I’d like to travel back in time for a few hours now and again, but for the most part, I live in the present, grateful for what is.

It got me thinking, though: At my best, I am a contemplative, a person attuned to my heart and the whisperings of Spirit. In Nashville last Thanksgiving, I even bought myself a poster at the Johnny Cash museum that reads “I Keep a Close Watch on This Heart of Mine,” because it seemed too perfect to pass up. And yet there I was, taken completely aback by a grief that I had never named, and so didn’t recognize.

My poster, which is in my line of sight every time I sit to pray: “I keep a close watch on tis heart of mine.”

Of course, there’s no getting around the fact that we, as a society, are not very good about dealing with grief. It helps a little bit that actual physical death is undeniable when it happens, I suppose. At least when there’s a death of a beloved family member, people know to offer condolences, or bring casseroles, or write sympathy notes. But do we even have words for the more nuanced griefs we all carry? Are there support groups for friendships that fall apart, either through hurtful behaviors or simple inattention? What about for the loss we may feel when we move out of a home where we built a life, and now someone else is cooking in that kitchen, tilling in that garden, and marking the doorframe with children’s heights?

I remember like it was yesterday the morning that we prepared to help Owen move in at college for the first time. He was excited, we were excited, but at the moment that we were about to jump in the truck to drive him into his next new phase of life, the bottom fell out. I was hugging him, and there were tears as he said, “It’s just that nothing will ever be the same again.” And he was right; though things have been good in new ways, nothing has ever been the same. And so: grief.

And, back to last week’s conversation about weaning: Do I wish I was still in that breastfeeding phase? No. It was exhausting, there were many difficult aspects of those early years, and as I said, it has always been the goal for our children to develop into adults with their own lives. But still … there’s no denying the loss involved in such growth. And it would seem that I haven’t every really looked at some of the grief I carry; I haven’t pulled it out of cold storage, held it up to the light, and examined it from multiple angles.

What about you? It may be that you don’t share that particular grief, but if I know anything about adulthood, it’s that we all bear wounds and sorrows, and very likely most of them stay hidden from all but our closest friends, and often even from ourselves. I wonder what it would be like, for you and for me, to get to know those more subtle griefs ~ to acknowledge our sadness from time to time, to ride the waves of those emotions, and somehow to be strengthened by them.

And so, a blessing:

For All the Griefs We Carry

Blessed are we as we live these lives,

in human bodies, with human joys and human losses.

When chance brings us face to face with a hidden sadness within us,

may we pause to name it, and if weeping seems right,

may we weep tears of cleansing and release.

May we find the right words to speak of what has been lost,

and the right friends with whom to share the grief,

whose love will help to lift it

even if the grief itself feels insubstantial in the telling of it.

And may our awareness of our own quiet griefs help us

to attune our hearts to the griefs that others carry,

so that compassion and empathy become our superpowers.

May it be so. Amen.