The Journey Called Grief
I didn’t know I needed to be healed. I left the hospital just after 4am on July 3, 2018 with Mason beside me at the wheel, me with an empty womb, and no baby in the back seat. I knew my body needed to be healed cause I delivered a baby. And I knew I had to grieve, but I didn’t know my heart needed to be healed.
Grief. That was the name of the road we turned onto that day. It was a road I didn’t know how long we’d be on, but I knew it couldn’t be skipped or driven around. When you’ve experienced loss, all roads lead to grieving, whether you try to avoid it or you knowingly accept it.
Truth be told, I started on this journey 12 weeks and 2 days ago, and I’m not sure if I’m still on it or not, nor do I know how much longer I’ll be on it… if I still am. By no means am I the expert on grief, clearly. But I’d like to share with you my discoveries since I’ve been on this journey. Now, I am the only one who could make this journey for myself, but thankfully I haven’t been on this journey alone. So, many of my discoveries came by way of one of the traveling partners God’s sent me lifting up my chin, pointing out something and I follow their outstretched arm to pointing finger with my head to see what they’ve discovered for me within my own journey. So. Collectively, this is what’s become known to my heart.
One. Grief sucks. Now, I won’t leave it at that because that’s not my entire truth. But it’s definitely part of it. Grieving is hard! It’s a roller coaster with no defined ending; the environment is ever changing; you don’t know when you’re doing it; you don’t know what’s affected. For me, I’ve worked really hard over the years to become self-aware, to be aware of all skeletons in my closet and, though it was tempting to just have a garage sale and attempt to sell them off, I’ve intentionally focused on removing them, examining them, learn their history, then send them packing on their way. This has by no means been done easily, nor without the help of others: the strength, guidance, and grace of Holy Spirit, AND Mason, my therapist, and many other willing, but innocent bystanders God placed in my life along the way. But grief was and has been unexpected in the self-awareness department. I’ve struggled with pinpointing the roots of my emotions and the cause of random tears. Maybe you’re thinking, “Uh, Charis, you lost your son not even 3 months ago; of course you’re experiencing crazy emotions and random tears.” One would think. Ha! But see, friends, I’ve worked at knowing myself so deeply that when I’m feeling any particular way that is not cohesive or fluid with who I am, I typically body scan myself from head to toe. It goes something like this:
Head – Okay, Charis, where is your mind? Where are your thoughts? What have you been dwelling on? Are there lies you’ve been believing? Did someone say something to you that maybe was misconstrued and your mind is still processing it?
Mouth – What have you been talking about, Charis? You know life and death are in the power of the tongue, have you been speaking life or death? What have you spoken into existence? Have your words been used to build up or tear down? Is there someone you need to ask forgiveness for how you spoke about them? You reap what you sow…
Heart – Charis, what emotions are you feeling? Did lies you hear turn into beliefs you let seep into your heart? Are these emotions tied to present situations or past childhood wounds that are resurfacing to be dealt with again?
Feet – Where have you been, Charis? Did you go somewhere and leave with more than you came with? Don’t go pickin’ up spiritual hitchhikers, just taggin’ along for the ride. If they didn’t come with you, don’t leave with them.
SO. That’s essentially what my self body scan looks like. But see, grief is an animal of a different species. It is wild and untamed and precious and fierce. She’s somethin’ else entirely! She cannot be put in a box. Which leads me to my next discovery of grief.
Two. There are different types of grief: “normal” grief, where you know it’s coming. You’re prepared for it. Your loved one has been chronically ill and you’ve seen it coming. Arrangements have been made. And then there’s traumatic grief, where you don’t know it’s coming. There’s no way you could have planned for it. That’s what my therapist told me. There’s no way we could have prepared ourselves for what happened the evening I went into labor. There’s no way we could have prepared ourselves for the additionally traumatic experience of the Emergency Room and all that transpired. She also told me, “Trauma is the natural disaster of the soul,” and man is she right.
Three. There is grace for the grieving. I feel like this has been the plight of this leg of my journey… being gracious with myself. With the “natural disaster of the soul”, comes the time necessary to rebuild. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a town rebuilt in a day after experiencing a natural disaster. It takes time. It takes overhauling houses, cleaning out that which has been destroyed, and sometimes starting at bare bones to make sure the foundation and structure is solid. Sometimes it takes spraying where mold has accumulated so that others don’t get sick and infected. It’s a costly project, but a house won’t stand, a town won’t stand, if it’s not rebuilt properly. No one has the expectation for rebuilding to happen overnight or even in a week’s time, so when grief is experienced, when this “natural disaster of the soul” happens, why do we expect someone to be rebuilt and “over it” in a day… a week… a month? There is an extra measure of grace for the grieving. For me, I haven’t been without grace from others. My boss and co-workers were such blessings, as they didn’t allow me to return to work for 2 weeks. Like seriously, my co-worker literally spoke to our boss and told her, “No, Charis won’t be coming back til [whatever date].” When I tried to go back, again she said, “No, that’s not necessary. We’re holding down the fort. There’s nothing for you to do. You stay home and take care of yourself. It’s too soon. I’ll come check on you.” To say I’m so thankful for my work tribe is an understatement. But see, where I struggle is being gracious to myself. Giving myself the same measure of grace that I give others. Not expecting myself to be “okay”. Not getting frustrated with my own heart when it’s feeling things that I can’t explain or verbalize. Allowing myself to cry for “no reason” when I can’t use my period as an excuse. Not getting frustrated when my self-scan doesn’t explain why I’m feeling off emotionally. Which leads me to this…
Four. With [traumatic] grief (especially) comes a need to heal. In medical terms, when someone has experienced trauma, they have experienced a physical injury, and physical injuries need healing. I never correlated this with emotional trauma. Like I said earlier, I didn’t realize this was a thing. To be honest, I didn’t come to this knowledge until a few weeks ago in conversation with my friend who doubles as the local Moms in the Making leader. That conversation went something like this:
Good morning friend. So you follow Caroline on Instagram? (@trustinginduetime) She posted some stories today that were so good. One thing she said is “Trauma opens the door to the enemy” and I can’t stop thinking about it. The Bible tells us that the enemy is like a thief that comes to kill and destroy. I was thinking about the trauma of losing my babies… and of you losing yours and I got super angry at the enemy. Not just because I feel like the enemy stole my babies… but the trauma has created fear and anxiety in a place that should be joyful.
Today, as your heart continues to heal… I pray that the Lord helps you heal those areas that were opened by trauma.
I keep imagining trauma like a car accident. If you were badly hurt in a car accident, you’d have to take extra care to make sure your injuries don’t get infected. But then, once the immediate concern of the infection leaves… you’d start to work on the long term effects.
So let’s break this down. I consider my last pregnancy to be very traumatic. So… for the first several months and maybe even years… I was working on my heart… to keep the infection out. To not turn bitter to Jesus. Now I’m working on the long term effects. Working on choosing faith instead of fear.
This is long winded… but I want to remind you that losing Zadok was traumatic and grief and healing takes time. You are still very much in the first phases. Just as if I was in a car accident, you wouldn’t be expecting me to handle learning to walk when I’m still letting my woulds heal. This is the same… you have to worry about infection before you relearn to walk.
Today I wanted to remind you to give yourself grace.
To which I replied after wiping the tears from my face:
I have to tell you, I woke up this morning feeling all the things… but also with the thought, “How much of this is ‘normal’ grief, how much is hormones, and how much is an enemy attack?” After waking up and just lying there for a while on my phone, I went to get out of bed and Father said, “Lay back down, Charis. Let yourself cry. It’s okay to not feel strong. Your strength is not determined by how well your emotions can be consistently even. It’s okay to let yourself cry even after the ‘good’ days. I’m right here, Charis. It’s okay.” Course then He used my own words “against” me, “With yourself be gracious. You tell people that all the time, Charis. You have to believe and use that for yourself.”
Melissa:
There is a huge difference between wallowing in your grief AND healing. One is moving forward… one is staying stuck. Just like a car accident… there are good days and bad days… but it doesn’t mean you aren’t healing.
My moment of realization:
As silly as this sounds, I think I’m just realizing that I need to heal emotionally… I know afterwards that my body needed time to heal and that I needed to grieve, but somehow needing to heal beyond that evaded me.
Melissa, in all her wisdom:
That’s not silly.
Trauma and grief is like an onion. The more you heal… the more you realize how layered it is.
I’m 5 years out from losing my first baby, and the Lord continues to show me that there are places I need to let Him in. Places that I haven’t healed… places that I didn’t know existed.
And me, mind blown:
Wow. That makes so much sense. It’s like the older you get the more you realize how much you don’t know. That’s an underestimated way of putting it, but my heart feels the truth in that statement.
I so deeply appreciate the gift from God this girl is, for her friendship, her wisdom, her heart to point other women to Jesus, and to be real and transparent with her journey all at the same time. She couldn’t have said something more true in that moment. “Trauma and grief is like an onion. The more you heal… the more you realize how layered it is.” That should be Five. Yup.
Five. The more you heal, the more you realize how layered trauma and grief are. I’ll just leave that right there…
Six. Everyone experiences grief differently. It looks and feels different to everyone. For me it feels like driving on one road and in undetermined intervals of time going from driving through a field of wild flowers to plummeting over a cliff then landing on a plateau and you continue driving and all of a sudden you’re in a blizzard and you feel like you’re gonna lose control of the car as you slide on ice, but then you slide sideways into mud. You’re slowly trudging through, but you’re making it and BOOM! There’s a rainbow and it’s nice out then you blink and it’s storming… get the drift? It’s unpredictable and changes scenery drastically. I’ve been “good” for a few weeks then all of a sudden a wave out of Nowhereville knocks me over in the middle of a landlocked state. As of late, most days I feel pretty great, and it is substantially less dramatic in a mental picture as all of the weather and terrain changes happening simultaneously. And some days I feel the sadness cause well, I miss my son and I miss carrying him.
Grief looks different to everyone. Sometimes my grieving has looked like me on the floor of what was to be Zadok’s room crying into his baby blanket. Sometimes it’s hearing a song that speaks to where I am and it hits me right in “my feels”, especially early on in this journey. Once, it was tears streaming down my face after coming across an old video of my little cousin and my grandma in the background with myself and my cousins singing the song my grandma would sing with us (Swingin’ on a Star by Frank Sinatra)… Mason had surprised me with the sheet music to have framed and hanged in Zadok’s room. Grieving isn’t always indicated by tears, though. Honestly, a few nights it’s been grabbing the little lamb that came in the Hannah’s Hope box a friend had made for me and snuggling with it, holding it close to my heart as I fall asleep… sometimes it’s just remembering him in the moments, not that he’s ever been forgotten.
Seven. Grieving has this way of making you feel like you should be alone… it makes you feel like since everyone else has moved on, since no one else is on this ride with you, since no one else is experiencing this like you are, that it’s easier to deal with it alone. They say time heals all wounds, but at times, when you’re the one grieving, it feels like you’re the only one watching the clock. Grief has the great possibility of making you feel lonely because you don’t want to surprise people or make them feel awkward when you break down in tears (or however you express grief) because you’re still hurting and they assumed you were fine now because you haven’t been crying all the time, and they’ve seen you smiling and laughing and enjoying life…
Two things: (1) It’s a lie that you need to be alone while you’re grieving. Isolation is. not. healthy. There is a difference between being alone to process and isolating yourself. There have been days where I just wanted to be by myself and write or sit and cry. But I also know that, for me, I need to only have 1 of those days at a time, surrounded by days where I’m amongst life givers… giggly, goofy kiddos, my best friends, people that make me life, people that will hug me, say it sucks, then let’s get coffee. I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t bring up Zadok, don’t pretend like it didn’t happen or walk on eggshells so you don’t remind me… I haven’t forgotten. But I don’t want to stay in a dark cloud when I can still remember him in the sunshine. Ya know? (2) If you’re the friend or loved one of someone grieving, just because they’re smiling and laughing and enjoying life, doesn’t mean the healing process is complete and all is well in their world. Remember those random waves in the middle of a landlocked state that would hit me? Yeah. Those are real, friend. If there is something that I have learned and internalized deeply it’s this: If God says that “in my weakness, His strength is made perfect” and “the joy of the Lord is my strength”, then in my weakness, His joy is the most abundant and perfect in me. It is a lie that I should feel guilty for the co-occurring joy that is present in the my grieving process. After all, if I’m praying for His strength to be made perfect and evident in me in the hardest of seasons, on the most convoluted of journeys, then His joy is not far from me. His joy is my strength. Maybe that means I’m weak A LOT, haha! Either way, friends, be near to your grieving friends and family members. I’m not saying constantly pester them, but lay to rest the expectation that what’s on the outside directly mirrors the inside.
Grief doesn’t mean without joy or without enjoyment of life. I’m just missing the dream of my son joining our home in December and the joy of getting to raise him, among so many other dreams that included him. I’m missing the joy of being pregnant and the anticipation for the day I would have felt his first kick and the joy in looking forward to growing together. But even in the missing and pain, I am not without joy. I am not without hope. I am not without faith. Cause I am not without Him, who I know holds my world in His hands.
By now, I realize I’m still on this journey called grief… but I won’t always be.
Grief is a journey whose face never shows the same reflection from one person to the next. But the beauty of this grief I’ve experienced is the depth of love. The little boy I’ve been grieving, this baby I was given the gift of carrying within me for 17 weeks was loved deeper than I knew my heart could hold. He wasn’t just some mass of cells. He was my son. He is my son. And my heart misses him every day. Grief is hard. SO hard. It’s made me feel like I was more rigid and systematic with my emotions that I thought. Nevertheless, the only way to the other side of grief is through it, accepting it, feeling it, processing it. We must adventure on through it, friends. There is still life to be lived fully.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 34:18
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10b