Pounding of Grief

Grief pounds the beat of its agony right into my body.

I go out to lunch yesterday with my sister, neither of us feel well, we are full right up to the brim with the sorrow of loosing Seana. We feel hunger, but the food has no taste; the hunger we feel is the hunger to see the one we have lost.

The world seems shifted, surreal.

The sun shines, the skies are blue. The breath of spring and approaching summer warm the day; yet I am hard pressed to find it enticing.

We head up to the cash to pay our bill.  I whisper to my sister the scream of my pain, "I'm shaking inside.." I murmur.  We go out to the car and it floods me, the rain of tears flow down my face.  I feel the throbbing in my left temple; this drumbeat that has no escape, the tears that drive the pain to the surface and I unwind, sobbing.  I tell Sue the stories of Seana that I am thinking of...we sit in the heat of the car, the boiling lament bubbles volcanic.

She reaches over quietly, gently, tenderly rubs my neck, touches my shoulder, speaks almost wordlessly, words spilling grief mingled with mine.

I feel like I do not want my brother, Seana's father, to see me like this, I don't want him to think that it is strange that I grieve so cavernously.  I worry that it will upset him.  I try to lock down the mourning that wails in my soul, I need to drive my sister to his place.  We wait for a while and then I drive, barely contained.  We arrive and he can see my distress, he does not say anything right then, he offers a hug, the warmth of presence.

This grief wraps our family.  It is a blanket that we do not care to cast off.  In part, our grieving speaks of the depths of love that we have for Seana and how very much we long for her.  Oh, we are so, so thankful that she no longer suffers, but the missing is profound anguish.

Sleep, it's hard to come by but morning comes again -  somehow mysteriously we get up to "do" another day.  But the shadow of death presses heavy upon our hearts.  We feel the grief in our bloodstream.  Our very essence carries the memories - both the sad ones and the ones that make us smile. I feel like I want the person and not only the memories.

Heads hurt and stomachs rebel, weariness creeps in and there are aches in the upper back, in the legs.  Sorrow cannot be silenced and our bodies tell stories that our hearts can barely express.

At the very same time in the background, right alongside the grief, the pulsing life of the Comforter sings words to me over and over and over again..."Oh how He loves us, oh how He loves us"...

This song was sung at the Memorial Service and Holy Spirit, the Comforter, reminds me of it and of Resurrection.  That life is always stronger than death.  That death has been ultimately conquered.

The end of the story is that we will see Seana once again, that we will dance together in glorious reunion.

For now, I grieve, I sing the love song Jesus sings to me, I mourn.

I grieve, I sing, I mourn.

The weaving of the days, black and golden, sadness and hope.

Hope, always hope.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson


And I miss you Seana, I miss you.