Lessons in Loss: "There's a Word for That"

It has been one week since I lost my first TC student.  For days, people kept calling, texting, messaging and commenting: "How are you doing?"  "Are you ok?"  "Is there anything I can do?" and it meant the world to me.  It was comforting that they did not avoid me just because they didn't know what to say or do to make me feel better.  They entered into the discomfort with me and patiently let me be sad, angry, frustrated or whatever else I felt.  They made it ok for me to be wherever I 'was' that day, and they gave me the gift of being allowed to walk through pain, rather than around it.  They understood that in addition to losing someone I care about, many questions and doubts would follow for me, and their simple gestures of love and support carried me for days as I was reminded:

I am not alone.

What I am feeling matters.

I am allowed to go through this.

It is good for me to feel, process and experience all that is in this moment...

A few weeks ago, my pastor sent me a song by Kathryn Scott ("We Still Believe").  Neither of us knew when he first sent that song how I'd be tested to live it before I could sing it.  The day after I find out we lost "E," I pulled out this song and started learning it for church.  I had heard the words of the chorus, but not listened much to the verses.  It begins:

From the thankful heart to the battle scarred

From the comforted to those who grieve...

"To those who grieve..."  Singing alone in my room that night, I finally broke.  I had been speechless, unable to answer the "Are you ok's" and "How are you doing's" from all my friends and family.  I was in a state of emotional shock.  The only response I could muster ("I will be ok.  Thank you for your prayers and support") felt cheap, falling short of the weight of this moment.  I'd been telling myself (unintentionally), "Get up, Tara.  Get up.  You're stronger than this.  You need to be strong.  Your girls need you to be at your best.  It's ok to be sad, but you need to stop being so emotional.  Pick up and move on."  But nothing inside of me was ready to just "pick up and move on."  There was a knot in my throat the size of Texas, a sinking, empty feeling in my stomach, and the constant worry over my other 'prodigal daughters.'  There were swirling doubts about the worth of my ministry, about the sincerity (or lack thereof) of my current students, and the worst wound of all - those 'Job' questions drowning the buoyancy of my faith.  So "pick up and move on" wasn't quite working for me.  

I needed to feel.  I needed to experience the horrible rot and stench of every question, doubt, and re-opened wound in my soul.  I needed to let myself think.  I needed to experience this.  I needed to water the flowers of a frustrated faith, struggling to break through the soil of sorrow.

Then I saw it: "To those who grieve..."  

GRIEVE.

The word itself seemed to thrust itself off a barren chord chart, throwing its arms around my bleeding heart.  "To those who grieve.  To those who grieve.  To those who... GRIEVE."

I had been wondering, "What is my problem?   Why am I so handicapped by this?  Why do I feel this knot in my throat is never going to go away?  Why do I feel like I'm suffocating inside, like the very air I breathe has turned to smog and ash?  Why can't I just shake it off?"

I sang "To those who grieve," and a voice spoke in my heart: "There's a word for it.  What you're feeling, Tara, there's a word for that.  It's definable, it's recognizable, it's affirmed in that there is a word for it, and that word is grief.  You are allowed to grieve - you are right to grieve.  So grieve.  Grieve with the same amount of guts and passion with which you give every other day.  Grieve like it hurts.  Grieve like it matters.  Grieve, though you are hurting, like you still believe.  Don't miss the gift of this regrettable experience by failing to grieve."

In that sentence, in that word, I found comfort knowing there is a word for what I am feeling.  I guess as much as I was hurting and frustrated, I needed some sort of validation that what I was going through was ok.  That it didn't mean I was losing my mind or my faith, just that I was grieving - and I was right to grieve.  

I don't always understand the power of our words, but a word spoken (or sometimes withheld) at just the right time can release enormous healing.  As people struggle around us, maybe they do not need our answers or solutions so much as they need to be affirmed and validated in their pain.  Maybe they need to know they are allowed to experience the heights and the depths of this life with gore and with grace; that although at times life may be ugly and tragic, there is still hope in the pain, and experiencing the pain does not diminish the power of hope.

A week after losing "E," I'm thankful for the companionship of family and friends through the valley of the shadow of death.  I'm thankful that they raised their voice, extended their hands, offered their hope when mine was weak.  I'm thankful they allowed me to be where I 'was,' to not force me past the moment with pat answers, cliches or empty words.  I'm thankful for the hugs, the texts, the messages, the calls and talks that all reminded me I am not alone, I am understood, and there will be more than this.  I'm thankful for a good song at just the right time, and the gift of a soul that, by grace, still sings in sorrow: "I still believe."