I miss my grandmother. I have been writing this song which will probably never be sung outside of my writing pad called, “God took you away, because I would have never let you go.” That’s how I feel. Who’s ever ready to let someone you love go? Some people say we were meant to live for eternity, and God says he’s put eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3), but a stronger concept is that we were created for relationship, and that’s what’s lost right now.

The grace of God is that He’d been ‘preparing me’ for this for 2-3 years. So I’m doing better than I ever thought I would. What does better mean? That I can still function, that I’m not on medication (knock on wood), that I’ve been down this road before and my “Grief Handbook” is my coffee table, night time reading material, that I have relationship with friends. All that helps, and yet…

The pain is deep. The Grief Handbook calls this time Task I, “To Accept the Reality of Loss.” This then moves into Task II, “To Experience the Pain of Grief.” This can take 1-2 years. Sounds like fun right? There’s no way around this, some people ignore grief, working or medicating away their pain, others never move through and remain stuck years later.

These Tasks often include various Responses to Grief:
1. Responses of Shock
2. Strong Emotion
3. Depression
4. Fear and Panic
5. Guilt
6. Anger
7. Apathy or Resist Returning
8. Hope and Adjustment

These are not linear, in other words they are not sequential. You may experience one or some and then back to one and two. There’s no particular order.

How does this show up in daily life for me? Yesterday the doctor told us Isabela (3.5) needs to have tubes in her ears – surgery for a 3 year old. Should we wait, should we do this now? I get these thoughts ranging from gramma’s surgery to it’s no big deal they do this in 10mns. I know all the facts, I’ve read about this online, talked to friends, etc. I don’t just need information.

What Rachelle and I wish for is that we could talk to gramma. She was our medical advice, having raised 6 children in a 3rd world country teaches you a lot about medicine, home made recipes, etc. Her advice was amazing, in tune. Also, as most elderly people know, she was very acquainted with medicine due to all her medical conditions. And most of all, she loved Isabela. I write this with tears in my eyes, as I think of times Isabela would sit in gramma’s room to watch Spanish soaps together with abuelita. That’s stopped.

So we miss her in that way, her advice and wisdom, her care, her love for her great-grandaugther, one of 10 great-grandkids, and the daughter of one of her 25 grandchildren.

Tomorrow, I will start going through the Grief Handbook with a friend that’s going through a painful divorce. He feels alone and that he has to be on all the time. Yes, I know the feeling. In the middle of my loss, God has called me to help others, and my pain only opens my heart even more to his pain. This is the concept from 2 Corinthians 1.

Thanks for reading.