Grief as Praise

"Grief as praise. I hope he will abide in you as the tearing away softens into a return. That is my experience."

—Verandah Porch

Honey,

Verandah wrote this as a comment on one of my posts about us and I've been contemplating this: praise, tearing away, abiding. Fellow widow, Jan Richardson, in her beautiful book "Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life", also uses the word abide in reference to her and her husband. Her opening chapter is entitled "If You Abide". She writes: 

"Even as I ached—and still ache—for your presence, I knew even then that I couldn't make a life around anything of you that might linger. I did wish for the comfort of knowing that something of you abided, somewhere, as more than a memory: that there would come a day, after my own dying, when I would see you again. For a time, I was plagued by fear and anguish that were directly connected with the question of whether I sensed your presence and whether I would see you again. It was unbearable to think I might not, and I couldn't claim any real grounds for hoping I would, so complete did your absence feel."

"...How can there be a God when you are not in this world?" 

And then much later:

"This awful hollowing taking place in your chest: this is your heart becoming larger. This is the space you will need in order to hold him now." 

All of this describes more accurately where I am than I can find words for. At one moment I can feel you so fully that my chest feels torn open and gutted out, and I struggle to stand. Then at other times, I am so deathly fearful that I will never feel your presence or see you ever again...as the Cheryl Wheeler song "Further and Further Away" states, I fear you are "slipping further and further away". 

This place where my heart dwells is the ultimate of tearful love songs. My soul singing to you, to God, to keep us united even upon your dying. I pray that you dwell, you abide in me and me in you until that time. You and I, abiding in each other, it was promised through the start of time, and what we promised in our wedding vows. It explains the deep pain I feel in losing you, in physically not having you in my life, we became bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, joined to be one.

"This at last is bone from my bones, and flesh of my flesh!... This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body."

—Genesis 2.23-25 

This passage of time, you becoming further and further away, the pain and terror of our bodies being torn apart, it is like the moment of birthing but in reverse with the outcome not joy but grief. Yet, here I am about to start again without you, knowing that sometimes, no matter how ones tries, the most powerful prayers and actions end in failure—my failure through your death. I am overwhelmed by the enormity of what I now face without you, of the eternal human condition, and unanswerable questions. It is not being alone that causes this despair, but of being without you, my flesh and bone.

Honey, please find me again, please abide in me and may I abide in you, may we once again 'return' as Verandah eloquently puts it, may we be rejoined, be transfigured together in God's heart.

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Further and Further Away

—Cheryl Wheeler

I can see the place where I came from

I can hear those sounds right now

I can find the paths I used to run

And believe I still know how

Then I shake my head, clearing my vision

I keep those scenes at bay

And I can see the place where I came from

Slipping further and further away

And I can feel the way I used to feel

When the world was small and green

And you sang a song of soft appeal

And I curled into my dream

Then I shake my head, clearing my vision

I keep those scenes at bay

And I can feel the way I used to feel

Slipping further and further away

Time keeps moving faster and faster

I'm not losing track

I'm afraid that something's forgotten

So I keep looking back

I can hear the songs you used to sing

I can swear I won't let go

You were strong and you knew everything

That was all I had to know

Then I shake my head, clearing my vision

I keep those scenes at bay

And I can hear the songs you used to sing

Slipping further and further away