Tag Archives: Grief

O Come, All Ye Faithful

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It hits when I least expect it. 

Grief.

If I anticipate the possibility, I’m usually ok. But if I don’t think about it, if I don’t prepare myself ahead of time…that’s when it leaps out at me and clonks me over the head.

And so, last Sunday morning, there I was in church. I got through almost the whole service and then we stood to sing one final song.

O Come, All Ye Faithful. One of my very favorite Christmas carols.

I sang the first few words just fine: O Come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…

and then it struck.

O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.

Memories of Mom flooded my mind. Images of her in choir. Images of her in her favorite chair. Images of her baking Christmas cookies, wrapping gifts, decorating the tree. Memories of her, down on hands and knees, playing with my dollhouse. 

Within me, roiling emotions. Around me, the beloved tune.

Come and behold him, born the King of angels; O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

For a moment I wondered: can I hold it in?

No, I could not.

Tears began and they began hard.

I had another wonder:

Should I walk out? Or would that cause more distraction?

I chose to sit. I bowed my head. Made myself as small as possible. And I sobbed.

Shoulders shaking. Mouth open. Silent. Heart all out there:

Mom is gone. I’ll never talk to her again. I’ll never hear her voice again. I’ll never sit beside her in church, hear her singing this or any other hymn. I’ll never hug her or be hugged in return. I’ll never see her little grin when something tickled her fancy and she couldn’t help but laugh.

I’ll never touch her hand.

I’ll never wrap another gift for her, smiling at the knowledge that she’ll be delighted with the present.

But then, in the midst of it all, an awareness.

Mom is with Jesus. Maybe right now she’s talking with him. Laughing with him. Asking theological questions of the author of Theology.

The song continued in the air around me:

Sing, choirs of angels…

Mom’s singing with those angels. Her sweet, soprano voice, once again soaring. As it hasn’t in more than a decade, ever since her stroke.

Sing in exultation.

I was alone in the pew. My husband was up front on guitar; daughter nearby at the mic. Singing. In exultation.

Sing all ye citizens of heaven above.

The song continued and so did I, tears like a river down my cheeks. I never knew so many tears could live within my head.

Afterwards, my husband’s strong arms.

My friends. 

They came. The faithful. The compassionate. The criers and the dry-eyed.

O come, all ye faithful. Come comfort the brokenhearted. Come weep together. Come sit in silence while your loved one mourns. 

O come.

Come and behold the knowledge that the lover of our souls calls his people home.

Called my mother home.

O come, Kathy. It’s time. You have been faithful, good servant.Come sing with the choirs of angels. Come sing, ye citizen of Heaven above! Come sit with the Word of the Father, who appeared in the flesh. Tiny, vulnerable, yet Lord of Lords; Son of the Father; begotten, not created.

Come and adore him.

Yes, there will be moments of unendurable grief. But it is grief for me. For the emptiness of the world without my mother. 

It is not grief for her, joyful and triumphant citizen of heaven! Exalting with the angels up there, no cane, no breathing difficulties, no nebulizer treatments, no food forgotten in the oven: just adoring the true God of true God.

Glory to God, all glory in the highest.

All glory in my grieving, wayward heart. 

Perfect Timing

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I am not a journal-writer. My mom, on the other hand, wrote in a journal every day of her adult life. Or as close to every day as she could possibly get. We have journals that go back to the early days of their marriage. We can look back to see what was written when my sisters and I were born, when emotional events took place in our family, when world-events occurred.

It was my grandmother, Mom’s mom, who encouraged her three girls to keep journals. We have her journals as well, though I understand that she didn’t want them kept. In fact, she specifically asked that they be burned when she died. Mom did not obey that wish. Whether she ever read them, I don’t know. I do know that as I was packing them up to send home with my Aunt Nancy after Mom’s memorial service, I found the one from the year I was born. I opened to the correct page and sure enough, there I was mentioned for the first time. My brain was in too deep of a fog at that time to remember exactly what she said, but it was full of thanks and hope and joy.

How lovely to have her words about me, from day one.

I have not read any of Mom’s journals. Not yet. I probably will someday, when I’m ready. Of course, that’s if I can read her handwriting. She words were pretty wobbly for the last few years of her life.

I did, however, with Dad’s permission, read what she wrote on the day she passed away:

12/25/22 Sun.
John 7:1-9
No time to write – later or tomorrow

Sadly for us, there was no later, nor was there a tomorrow. But that’s ok. Because here’s what she read that day, in her well-worn Bible:

“After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him, ‘Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.’ For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
Therefore Jesus told them, ‘My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.’ After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.” John 7:1-9

My time is not yet here…my time has not yet fully come…

Wow.

Jesus knows about timing. He’s God, after all! God, who created time itself. God, who sees all of time at once. God, who knows what’s coming and knows how things will work out and therefore never gets stressed out about current affairs the way we do because, quite frankly, “now” is just a drop in the bucket of time.

Jesus knew the time had not yet come for him to reveal himself to the world with multiple miracles and the like. He was biding his time. He waited patiently. He did not allow his human brothers to dictate his behavior. His time on earth had come…but his ministry on earth had not yet fully come.

Not yet. Not fully. 

The last sentence Mom wrote in her two-page journal entry on December 24th, the day before she died, was this: “I will come Lord. I will listen.”

She was so ready to be with Jesus!

And God, being God, knew. He knew Mom’s time had come. Fully. Completely. She was ready to see him and he was ready for her, too.

I cannot begin to say how comforting that is.

And comforting, too, that the last Scripture passage she read was about God’s perfect timing. She, a huge bookworm, had read her last book.

I don’t know the exact Scripture passage they read in church later that morning, but given that it was Christmas day, I can give a pretty good guess: Jesus. Born in God’s perfect timing.

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son…” Galatians 4:4

Perfect timing.

Or what about this?

 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” 
Romans 5:6

Perfect timing!

In birth.

In death.

Mom’s time fully came.

Surprised by grief

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C. S. Lewis wrote a book titled, Surprised by Joy. I must admit, I’ve never read it. Only excerpts. I’m sure it’s great. I mean, it’s Lewis, right? I know I should read it…but the thing is, I’m an optimist. Joy never really surprises me; I expect it.

What surprises me is this grief.

I mean, okay, my mom died. I’m supposed to grieve. It’s okay. It’s normal. It would be bad to not grieve. On several levels. But what I wasn’t ready for is this “hit-me-out-of-the-blue” grief. The concept is not new to me, that of grief hitting at unexpected moments. But the reality is rough.

I’ll be going along, doing my own thing, and suddenly there it is: tears, welling up in my eyes. Maybe I saw a reference to Mother’s Day. Or a recipe she would have clipped. Or heard a song she loved.

Or, as the last time this happened, simply being in church.

Thank goodness it was the Maundy Thursday service — always a favorite of mine — and the lighting was dim. Thank goodness I was in the back row. Thank goodness it was acceptable to have our eyes closed.

My grief built up as the service progressed. I mean, it was Easter week – so that’s emotional right there. It’s Jesus forgiving, dying, rising. How can I not get emotional about that?

Says the girl who cries at the drop of a hat.

But usually when I cry in church it’s subtle. It’s silent. It’s perhaps even expected. Of me, anyway.

But this was different. As the service progressed, the emotions were building but still within acceptable levels and then there we were, singing My Jesus, I Love Thee and the dam that kept the waters at bay burst.

“My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine / for three all the follies of sin I resign; / My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou: / I ever I loved three, my Jesus ’tis now. / I love thee because thou hast first loved me…”

CUE THE FIRST TEARS.

“and purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree; / I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow;”

CUE MORE TEARS

“If ever I loved three, my Jesus ’tis now.”

CUE THROAT CLOSING UP AND TEARS STREAMING DOWN CHEEKS. I WON’T BE SINGING THIS SONG OUTLOUD ANY LONGER. I KEPT SINGING IT IN MY HEAD, THOUGH.

“I’ll love thee in life, I will love three in death,”

CUE VISIONS OF MY MOM. IN DEATH.

“and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;”

CUE AGONIZED, DESPERATE WIPING OF EYES. COULDN’T YOU HAVE LENT HER BREATH A LITTLE WHILE LONGER, GOD?

“And say when the deathdew lies cold on my brow:”

CUE WONDERING WHAT DEATHDEW LOOKS LIKE. CUE WONDERING IF I WILL BE ABLE TO STOP THESE TEARS OR IF I’LL BURST INTO AUDIBLE SOBS AND VISIBLE SHAKING. CUE SPECTACULAR SELF CONTROL. CUE WONDERING IF I SHOULD GET UP AND WALK OUT. OR IF I SHOULD TAKE MY DAUGHTER’S HAND OR IF THAT WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE. CUE WISHING I COULD JUST LET GO AND WAIL. CUE THINKING THAT I NEVER THOUGHT I’D WANT TO WAIL IN PUBLIC BUT THIS MAY BE THE TIME. NOT SURE I CAN STOP IT. CUE WONDERING WHAT PEOPLE WOULD THINK IF I DID.

CUE NOT CARING.

CUE CARING.

CUE GASPING.

“If ever I loved thee, my Jesus ’tis now.”

CUE WIPING MY EYES A FEW MORE TIMES. CUE HAVING NO IDEA WHAT THE PASTOR SAID NEXT. OR NEXT. OR NEXT.

CUE DEEP BREATHS. CUE REALIZING THAT I’VE SURVIVED.

CUE WONDERING, BRIEFLY, IF I WOULD HAVE BEEN HEALTHIER IF I’D JUST LET GO AND WAILED?

I was surprised by the extent, the moment, the depth of my grief. Cue wondering, now, in this moment, how long this will continue? If I haven’t yet wept as I ought. If I will be like my mom herself, who, in the stress of Christmas Eve preparations 11 months and three weeks after her father died and approximately nine months after her mother died, when she fled the house in tears and wept to the heavens on the absent neighbor’s deck because she’d kept the emotions in check for all those months. Being strong. Being brave. Behaving as a Christian ought, she thought, who knows that her parents are in heaven, who believes that worldly grief is wrong, who must set a good example for her girls, who does what’s right. Always.

Always.

Oh, my dear mother.

Cue realizing that I’m more like my mother than I ever realized.

I think Micah 7:7 came as a gift to me today. I’d forgotten about this verse, but suddenly there it was, as I was looking for a photo. “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.”

Yes.

Yes!

God hears me. When I sob in public places. When I cry in the reaches of the night. When I contemplate the thought of Mother’s Day. As I watch in hope for the Lord.

As I wait for God my Savior.

He hears his cue. And he never comes in late.