No, you are not losing your mind. I think losing our minds would be easier because we might not know or care. Grief is crippling. It makes us feel insane. Your brain is screaming one minute and dead the next. You move from dread to rage to loneliness to numbness and back to dread again, all flowing from a crushing sense of helplessness. This is the madness of despair. What you are feeling is “normal”, you are not going crazy. So, what is this?
You are heartbroken. Your heart is actually broken. So, your whole life is going to be affected. Most of your feelings cannot be trusted. Most of your thoughts will be half-baked. (Do not make any major life decisions at this time) When a train engine is damaged the entire train is affected; it slows or even stops. You are going to be unproductive and incoherent, off and on, for a long time. This does not mean you are weak or stupid. It means you are human and limited.
Love is pain. You are in pain now because the love you had for someone is now homeless. It has nowhere to land, so it rattles around inside you until your heart bursts with the weight of it. I wish I could tell you this will end soon, but it won’t, because love is the strongest thing on earth. It has been over six years since we lost our daughter, and we just expect to be a little off-balance for the rest of our days here. That’s ok. We are not embarrassed. Do not be ashamed of your grief. It is the badge of love – the Purple Heart of Heaven. Slowly, you will be able to remember with more love than pain, but the pain will always be there. You have a hole that goes right through you; a hollowness that is always reasserting itself. There is no healing from death, there is only resurrection.
Death is an intruder here. It is an enemy, a thug, a bully, a terrorist. Death is a tyrant and a thief that steals our children. I will not make peace with it. Is there any hope against such a strong adversary? Yes.
Death has an expiration date. Death is going to die.
The carpenter from Galilee pulled the main cornerstone from the castle of Death on a bright Sunday morning long ago. Death could do nothing to stop him as he rose on Easter. Now, one day soon, the entire edifice of death will crumble into the abyss. This is not something that might happen, this is something that WILL happen. There is no stopping it. I have looked ahead; I know how the story ends. Death will be no more. The tyrant will be thrown down.
At that time the brightness of Heaven is going to collide with earth and overwhelm it with life. All that is wrong with this place will be burned away, and all that is right will be magnified unto its promised glory. The ones we have missed will be there. They will be flesh and bone, and laughter and hugs. And we will be renewed like them. And the Carpenter will be among us, joyfully making it all happen. All the stories that were interrupted here will be continued then, and they will get better and better; there will be no end to them.
Until then? Take care of yourself. Eat some food. Get some exercise, even if it is just walking. Sit with a friend. You do not have to speak much; a true friend knows that. And look to the Carpenter who vanquished death one day long ago. Follow him, he is the Rock. He is also the “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”, and he wants you to know that you’re not going crazy.
Peace.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘behold, I am making all things new’.”
– Revelation 21