Becoming acquainted with grief

In the days surrounding the funeral of my dear wife, Carina, I was encouraged by a steady stream of guests, casseroles, flowers and notes. As I prepared to return to an empty house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a close friend from childhood and his wife offered to accompany me back home. For a few days I was buoyed and encouraged by their company.

But the time came for them to return home to Ontario, and I suddenly found myself all alone. I sat in an empty house, in silence, with my wife’s fingerprints all over the house in the form of her paintings, quilts and other personal effects. Her clothes hung in our closet, her shoes lay at the door, her purse rested on the desk and a stack of the books she had been reading lay on the living room floor. A children’s book she had been writing was left, not quite completed. And then there was the paperwork of death: updating bank records, canceling credit cards and filling out government forms. C.S. Lewis was correct: “The death of a beloved is an amputation.”

The last load

And then the tears came. The tears flowed as I cleaned up her things and as I did the last laundry load of her clothes. “My tears have been my food day and night” (Ps. 42:3) took on new meaning, and yet “precious in the sight of the LORD are the tears of his saints” (Ps. 116:15). There are some verses in the Bible that can be better appreciated after you have experienced lament and grief.

The tears eventually subsided, only to return periodically in unpredictable waves. Tears would start as I travelled home to an empty house and as I passed food items Carina liked in the grocery aisle. Grief would be triggered by seemingly trivial things, like scrounging though the freezer and spotting her familiar cursive handwriting on the label of a container, or seeing her sermon notes written with blue pen in the margins of our Bible. Grief was more predictable at the various “firsts”: the first Christmas without her, the first birthday after her death and the first anniversary without my wife.

Shared grief

I attended grief groups and have been encouraged by the simple fact that my experience is not unique. I discovered GriefShare, a thirteen-week program hosted in churches across the U.S. and Canada to provide comfort, encouragement and support for those navigating grief. Such programs illustrate the words of 2 Corinthians 2:4 which states that God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

I am alone, but not completely alone; I am grateful to be part of a wider church family. A husband and wife, both retired professors, host me each week for supper at their home. I meet weekly at a restaurant for dinner and a beer with another widower (who has since become a close friend) enjoying “happy hour” while occasionally shedding tears. I am grateful for a network of thoughtful family, friends, colleagues and neighbours who have surrounded me.

The waves of grief occur less frequently now, but still pop up at unexpected times and in unexpected places. I am told it will never completely go away; but grief has gradually been intertwined with gratitude for the years I shared with a wonderful wife. And I have profound gratitude for the hope found in God’s bigger promises that one day “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4).