Imbalanced
At times, grief creates a sensation of imbalance –
emotionally and spiritually, but it almost feels like it is physical as
well.
I left a breakfast conversation earlier today and driving
away the word “wobbling” came into my mind.
I am wobbling around emotionally, spiritually, and even physically –
unsure of my footing, feeling out of balance or alignment and almost like I am
about to literally topple over.
When Jerry Sittser said that we would, over time, learn to
“carry our grief comfortably,” perhaps he was describing the process of gaining
some balance in our walk with our grief.
If grief is analogous to carrying luggage and the bags are not going to
get any lighter, than perhaps I simply need to find a way to balance the weight
of the bags so that each side is approximately the same weight and it is easier
to balance them.
Does my love for Daniel mean that I will carry forever my
grief over losing him? Perhaps, over time, the weight of grief in the bags will
decrease, though I doubt I can ever completely put the bags down, nor do I want
to.
March 12, 2009
Organ donations
One of our favorite television shows for many years has been
ER, though we had not really watched it regularly for some time. This season is its last, so we have fallen
back into the habit of watching it as it winds down through its final episodes.
This evening’s show featured two organ transplant stories,
chronicling the situations that the donor families faced as well as the
recipients. As it must, television
simplified these complex processes into very sanitized and fast-paced dialogue
and decision-making. At one level, it
was reasonably well-done since it gave a reasonably accurate account of some of
the dynamics we experienced; in so many other ways, it was, of course, much
harder and more complex than a 60 minutes show, with commercials, can cover.
All that said, many thoughts and emotions came tumbling back
across my mind and spirit as I watched the on-screen drama. It is still so unbelievable that we went
through a similar series of conversations and gut-wrenching decisions and
experiences with our son. To say it
still seems surreal is such an understatement.
I want to someday feel good about donating Daniel’s organs,
but so far, I have not had that experience yet.
On the contrary, I still feel almost nauseated when I think about those
experiences – when I picture Daniel lying in that ICU bed hooked up to so many
tubes and I see him wheeled out and all of us walking him down that hall, into
the elevator, and finally into the operating suite for our final good-byes.
We all cried and our nursing team cried with us.
March 1, 2009
The Wilderness: A Furnace of Transformation
First Sunday of Lent:
today’s Gospel was the account of Jesus in the wilderness for forty days
being tempted by Satan. Stace quoted
Henri Nouwen’s description of this event as the “furnace of transformation”
that Jesus endured and that we must as well.
The furnace of transformation can come in many forms, including through
tragedies such as the death of loved ones.
Losing Daniel is a type of furnace that I am living in and
how it is going to transform me remains to be seen.
Losing my son has left me open and vulnerable. I often feel this palpably as I walk through
my day. I sense that I cannot cover up
for my vulnerability and my pain. It is
ever present, just below the surface, and easily stimulated. I feel like I no longer have the ability to
act as though I am “in control” of my life, that I “know what I am doing”, or
that I “have life by the horns.” I
somehow know better – I know that I have no control and have no real ability to
call the shots or make life behave the way I want it to.
Sitting helplessly by Daniel’s bedside and watching him die
has taken away this sense of invincibility and this sense of being in charge of
myself and my environment.
Where it mattered most, I was absolutely vulnerable and ultimately
powerless.
Somehow these feelings have changed me forever. Perhaps that is actually a good thing.
I have been transformed.
The furnace strips away the defenses, excuses, and
complications that we surround ourselves with; it leaves our spirits bare and
vulnerable. In the end, the furnace
transforms us most if we recognize that our only hope and our only source of
identity and power is God himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment