July 27, 2009
Yesterday morning as we began to get organized for our
weeklong vacation to Telluride and Santa
Fe Moab
Of course my tears provoked some from Carol – she is so
quick at empathy!
We shared our sorrow and the mutual fear that we don’t have
the energy or strength to go on sometimes – to be capable of creating new
experiences with Ben and Hannah that will lead to new happy memories for
them. This is the paradoxical challenge
that keeps recurring – how to hold our sorrow, gratitude, and need to continue
living all in some healthy balance or creative tension. The more basic question is, are we even big
enough – do we have the capacity humanly to do this?
When Jerry Sittser describes the soul growing or expanding
as a result of loss, perhaps this is partly what he is describing. The capacity of one’s soul increases in order
to accommodate these ostensibly incompatible tasks: to carry sorrow, gratitude, hope, joy, and
anticipation all at the same time.
I think as a human I can handle carrying sorrow; that
actually comes quite naturally. God will
have to expand my soul to be able to incorporate the gratitude, joy, hope, and
especially the anticipation. I know
these tasks are well beyond my capacity.
The anticipation thing is a particular challenge. Here too Jerry’s wisdom is so clear. He describes getting to a place where one can
imagine a new version of a “good life” though it will be a different “good”
then you originally dreamed of before you lost your loved one.
For us, it still seems so fresh – imagining a good life
without all three kids still seems impossible, but maybe we are getting closer
to being able to cross that threshold – at least part of the time.
God: help my soul to
continue to expand so that I can carry with grace my sorrow, gratitude, hope,
joy, and anticipation all at the same time.
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