Unresolved Grief

Chameleon-like, grief and its conceptual framework changed before I knew what was happening. It took years for me to connect the emotions I experienced as either sadness, uneasiness, loss, or "just a funny feeling." And far longer before I recognized the "dots" Holy Spirit had been "connecting" to my sense of self.   Yes, Holy Spirit-Connected-Dots! Let me try to traverse the expanse of growth, living, and learning it has taken me to look Life squarely in the eyes.  More than anything, it called for surrender to Power greater than I could've imagined. 

Abbreviated, because the small passage described here would take a book of some size to capture.   

I grew up sheltered from the hustle and bustle of everyday living.  Our family was poor---not poverty-stricken---but "working poor."  Even so or maybe because of our status, my parents exercised great caution to shield me from "stuff" they thought I shouldn't "see," even in my neighborhood.  My early love affair with books further sealed me in a decades-long cocoon. 

Life, it felt like, just happened.  Willy-nilly.  No rhyme or reason.  More a "Que Sera, Sera; whatever will be will be" lifestyle. 

My first taste of grief occurred when (Grand) "Mama" passed away.  All of us were super sad and I wondered who would make the famous chicken salad she made just for me! Mama brought my treat to Sunday service, every Sunday.  We completed the church funeral,  ate the traditional "Repast" after leaving Mama in  her "final resting place," and resumed life 

When lesser family members "passed" (the euphemism for "died"), we did what needed to be done, kept the funeral programs (as a sort of "souvenir"), along with the potted plants' relatives and friends had donated and resumed our daily lives.  The dead faded into misty memories recalled on memorial days and birthdays.  Maybe.  In the natural course of living, other people passed away.   Except by that point, I refused to use soft, polite terms. 

 Instead: people die; they don't 'pass away. ( Pass away to where?)  Deaths occur among close relatives, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues---all over the world.  I acquired perspective and a certain, carefully calibrated response to death and dying.  We live and we die.  It's that simple, I decided.  Except when it wasn't.  

I never thought of death in cumulative terms; they didn't add up to a tangible, measurable something.  Nor did I connect death with my response to other things going on in my life.  Or to intertwining with other significant life facets that carried any weight. Like grief, loss, and mourning on the one hand and job loss or loss of hope or the finality of divorce, on the other.---equalling what? 

Clearly, I had created the art of compartmentalization.  "Everything in its place and a place for everything," learned probably in fourth grade, had become my banner, my emotional shield.  Obviously, emotions did not rest comfortably in the intellect, where I felt safe. Time transformed me. Time, and the Creator of all, Who formed everything there is, has been working in and through me all my life.  Revelation has been unfolding inexorably, ever so certainly.  Scripture declares, "...I know this: I was blind but now I see!"  John 9:25, NLT. 

"Unresolved Grief,
" Part 2 follows.  Promise!