The Joyful Widower

Dear Griever,

Perhaps someone (or many someones) has said to you “time heals all wounds.”

Perhaps you’ve said it to someone else (in which case, forgive me for what I’m about to say).

Ahem. BS.

Time does not heal all wounds. Rather, time gives you the opportunity to work out the healing (or not). The healing doesn’t magically happen all by itself. You have to work for it, and the work is going to be hard. Likely the hardest thing you’ve ever done.

I wish I had an easier word for you than this, Gentle Reader, but this is the truth. Healing must be worked for. You can do the work and heal, or you can ball up, do nothing (or worse, do harmful things to yourself and others), and end up bitter and worse off than you are today. That is the choice. None of us gets to set the terms, but it’s on us to make the choice facing us. And to keep making it. Better or bitter.

Right after Thanksgiving my mother had both knees replaced in one surgery (“I wanted to hurt just one time”). The recovery has been rough. But Mom is one of those who follows doctor’s orders to the letter. If a medication says to take it every day at 5:47, by gum, she sets an alarm to make sure everything is ready to take it at 5:47 on the dot, and she logs it in her notebook. If her physical therapist says to do an exercise 36 times, she does it 36. Not 35. Not 37. 36. But because she has put in the hard work, even when it hurt horribly, her doctor and physical therapist are pleased with the results, and she is doing very well in her recovery. She’s also had fantastic support from Dad, who has been there with her every step of the way, encouraging her and keeping the household running. For Mom, time was not the healer; time was the accumulation of days, the opportunities taken to do the work. The hard work she put in every day, with help from family and medical support, brought about the healing that needed to happen.

Grief work is similar. It hurts. It hurts a hell of a lot at first (yes, it feels like abandonment and hell). The work is particular to the individual and to where they are in their grief. Some of us might be capable of moving faster or doing more. But each day you have to do the little bit that you are capable of doing. Yes, you need time to rest. You have to alternate work and rest. You can’t work 24/7, but you can’t rest 24/7 either. No, you won’t be back to “normal” (whatever that is) anytime soon (spoiler: you’ll never get back to “normal”). But each day is a chance to do a bit more, to work a little more, toward some kind of wholeness. Time is a gift that can be used or not. But the more you use the time, the more bearable the burden becomes. The more you misuse the time, the more unbearable the burden becomes.

Last month marked two years since Tracy’s death. Next month will be twenty-six years since Melinda’s death. I’ll never be the person I used to be. But with God’s help, with my family, with my community at St. Anne’s, and with my friends, I’ve come a long way, and I have new-found energy to develop a vision for where I want to go (of course, with ADHD, I want to go five directions at once, but more friends than one have independently counseled me to start small, do one thing, then iterate). I’ve started using a mind-mapping app to brainstorm and organize these ideas and figure out what should be the first steps. With God’s help I plan to “redeem the time,” to use the grief I’ve been given (and yes, I’m coming to see grief as a gift, but more on that in another post) as a means of ministry.

It feels like my wings are beginning to spread a bit, and the stretching feels great (and also a bit scary). I’ve met with a couple trusted people about my ideas, and so far I’m getting green lights. I’ll keep you posted as things develop about what comes to fruition.

God bless you all!

The Joyful Widower

PS–Monday begins Great Lent for Orthodox Christians. These 40 days (roughly 10%, or a tithe of the year) provide a time for all of us to do our own particular “grief work” over the ways our relationship with God and with each other has been broken, and to do the work of repentance and forgiveness, not to earn God’s love (God loves you no matter who you are or what you have done, and you can’t do anything horrible enough to change that), but to remove the things that get in the way of our experiencing and sharing God’s love. We begin the fast by asking for and giving each other forgiveness, because we need to “clear the slate” of any grudges or animosities between us in order to work on our relationship with God (“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” I John 4:20). If I have offended anyone, please forgive me, as God forgives us all!

The Secret of Time
Time is a gift of love and grace
Without time there’d be no time to change
Time to be tried, humbled and broken
Time to hear the word of love spoken

I see the mission up ahead of me
And I tremble as one shaken
But if I have the eyes of faith
The eyes to see
I will leave the outcome
In the hands of the One who called me
And over and over I must learn and relearn
That whether I decrease
Or whether I increase
Is not my concern
(Not my concern, no)

Deliver me from strategy
From endless clever thinking
Set my sights upon the shore
Keep this boat from sinking down
Let me taste of a fresh wind of reason
And stir the gift within
For I am not a boat left to drift at sea
I remain in you and you remain in me
There is no great distance
Between you and I

The moment I found out who you were
I found out who I was
And the silence covered me
And the tears began to fall
I could see, I could see
What a great and grand, great and grand
Act of affection it’s all been, all been
Time that is, time that is
Talk about time that is, time that is
My history is written through the choices I make

Let me sing just ten true words
I’d rather sing just ten true words
Than a hundred words that in the end
Amount to nothing, absolutely nothing
©1990 Charlie Peacock