How deep is my love? How deep is my grief?

June 11, 2008

Helpful books on grief by people who know more
I added the beginning of a quote tonight to my Facebook by Nicholas Wolterstorff from his book "Lament for a Son." Here is the complete quote:

"If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides.

So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it. I do not try to dis-own it. If someone asks, 'Who are you, tell me about yourself,' I say -- not immediately, but shortly -- 'I am one who lost a son.' That loss determines my identity; not all of my identity, but much of it. It belongs within my story. I struggle indeed to go beyond merely owning my grief toward owning it redemptively. But I will not and cannot disown it. . . Lament is part of life."

I am beginning to work through this little book; it is a challenging read.

Carol and I have both finished Jerry Sittser's book, "A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss." Jerry is amazing, even more so since we know that he was a huge influence on Daniel these last months of his life. I know we will both return to this book again and again.

It will take a long time to incorporate the wisdom of these two fathers who lost children (and others, in Jerry's case) into our hearts and minds.

NW (I have to abbreviate -- his name is too challenging) is so right -- our love for Daniel took 18 years to reach its depth. Somehow, our grief is just as deep as our love.

Who knows how long it takes to begin to "live more comfortably" with this sense of deep grief? Being able to, much of the time, "live more comfortably with grief" is how Jerry described his own life to us now 17 years after he lost three family members in one accident.

I trust we will get there someday, but I sense that day may be quite distant. In the meantime, we are acutely aware of Daniel's worth in our lives and how much we loved him, so our grief is indeed existential testimony to the worth of the one loved.

How deep is my love?  How deep is my grief?

Somehow, the depth of grief and loss correlates to the depth of love one has for the person whom you have lost.  I loved my son Daniel very deeply – therefore my sense of loss and the resulting grief is equally deep.  Since I spent over 18 years loving this child and having an ever deepening experience of who he was and who he was becoming, how long might it take me to endure the acute sense of loss and grief I feel at his passing?

Powerless – this too is a word that goes along with the recognition of how fragile life really is.  We also do not possess nearly the level of power over our lives that we want to believe we do.  We have some power to control a limited number of details, but mostly that is power over what I will do and think right now.  We have very little power over other people, and almost no power over what might happen next.