The Waves of Grief

 

  

The ocean has its ebbings — so has grief. ~Thomas Campbell

I recently asked a dear loved one who has been struggling with Covid, how they were feeling. Their reply was, “it comes in waves”.  I was relieved to hear that they were not constantly feeling awful, but as I lingered on their words, it occurred to me how grief can be like that.

When I think back on the memory of my earliest loss, it seems like ages ago.  Sitting at a hospital back in 1972 with nine-year-old legs dangling and swinging from the hard waiting room chairs. I was unaware of what words truly awaited me.  A child’s heart is a mansion of hopes, full with the unknowing of what can be lost. With all that we had gone through during the last few years with my mother suffering with mental illness and physical pain, I still was not expecting the news that would come my way.

I have written about that day and the loss of my Mom many times, but the memory of it has been relived in my heart and mind over and over again.  Like that description of illness, it ebbs and flows as waves do.  It comes to me in the face of mothers, and the cries of children in their arms. Sometimes it is in the silence of what is, and other times it is in the loud clamor of what will never be.  It can overtake me like an ocean, or merely sprinkle like a christening, but either way, it envelopes and then gradually lets go, drifting away like a ship at sea.

It has been almost 50 years since the day I lost her, and though time has a way of easing the ache, I have learned that grief is not something we ever completely lay down like paddles of a canoe.  When we lose someone, we love in this world, they still hold a special place within our heart that no one else can fill, and in our day to day life, many things can serve as a reminder of what we miss so deeply.  In those moments, I can once again be the child in a waiting room with news too hard to hold all at once.  Yes, grief comes in waves whether it is yesterday or decades ago, and like that child so many years ago, my heart has learned this lesson over and over again.

 

I dedicate this to all those mourning in this world, and to Amber Whitworth, my beautiful daughter who not only has endured great loss, but leads the grief ministry at her church.