Life after loss

photo by Greg Lincoln

by Greg Lincoln

Quyana for sharing your strength and happiness with us. How? When you show us your joy through your smiles, that happiness spreads like osmosis to us, filling us with something other than our deep sadness. It pushes out the dark and fills us with light, thank you so much for this gift.
This gift of your friendship and kindness is so very welcomed, like a buoy you lift us up when we are deep in the depths of this burden that we have been allotted to bear. It is so easy to talk and chat with you about this and that, and it makes our hearts light.
We are living in an invisible state of shock, prolonged and longstretched out shock. Our eyes have seen what no parent, no mother of father, should ever see. Our ears have heard those dreaded, unspeakable, awful words. It is even too hard to say it right now but to lay a child to rest is the most severe and most devastating in all of earth’s sorrows.
Through our tears we stumbled through the motions of things that needed to be done during those cataclysmic days. It was a blur of weeping, having to talk to make arrangements, breaking down midsentence, trying to make sense of the end of our world as we knew it.
It is our sincere hope that these grief articles, these lamentations of our shattered existence will bring understanding and help to those who love the ones who are experiencing this same grief and sadness of loss. These words have come at great cost – the greatest price has been paid for these words to come forth.
Oh Lord, such great cost and it is so hard to bear!
Our journey, this journey of grief has been trodden by countless others, millions of millions have gone through it. Yet, we are walking it like it has never been done before, like we are the first, because it is our own. And we can choose how we tread this path. With your help, we are able to walk again, to work, to have enough energy to do the things we need to do, and to feel something other than our sadness.
If you are on a similar path, you too can choose how you want to walk on this road of grief. Are we exempt from suffering? No, that was never promised to us. In truth, we can expect to suffer in this life but there is always hope. This blessed hope is what gives us encouragement to continue on this race, to keep running, to do everything we need to do to make sure that we will see our loved ones again.
When I look at my dearest Kelly I can see our daughter in her eyes, in her expressions, in her voice. So beautiful, so kind, so precious.
If you are suffering from a loss of a beloved one, we stand with you, we cry and pray with you, you are not alone. We do not want you to feel weary or discouraged, please let us continue to pray and hope as we grieve.