My dad died last week. It wasn’t unexpected as he had been under Hospice care since the middle of March. Even 
so, it was still hard.
My sister died the end of March. She valiantly fought cancer for seven years – never complaining, always pressing on.
My uncle died in February. This has been a hard year.
On Friday, I realized something about the way grief isolates me. As I sat in my hotel room trying to put together the thoughts I wanted to say about my dad at his memorial service, I looked out the fourth floor window of our hotel in St. Augustine. I noticed the cars passing by on I-95 and on International Golf Parkway. I couldn’t help but think about how none of these folks understood what we were going through. It was not their fault. They had lives of their own. I knew they didn’t get it. I felt alone.
As I came back to Charlotte on Saturday, life kept moving on but a part of me was stuck back in Florida at my dad’s memorial service, in Michigan at my sister’s funeral, and even in Ohio at my uncle’s, in the grief and sadness of it all. I found myself sort of separated in parts – the part that needed to go on and the part that is stuck behind in the grief. The latter is the part that feels so alone at times.
On that Friday, as I felt so disconnected from all the hustle and bustle I observed from my perched vantage point, I remembered Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11. When he saw his friend Mary, Lazarus’ sister, weeping in her mourning, he knew that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet, he didn’t say to Mary, “Don’t cry Mary. Everything is going to be alright.” He didn’t scold Mary with something like, “What’s the matter Mary? Don’t you trust me?”
Instead, he wept with her, recorded in the shortest but one of the most poignant verses in the Bible, when understood properly.
So as I sat there feeling very alone, I realized that, just like with Mary, Jesus was weeping with me. Again. Just like he did at my uncle’s and my sister’s death.
I think I need it more now. The cumulative affect of these months has taken its toll. I have been back since Saturday but am having a hard time doing the things that I need to do as life goes on. I keep crying out for support, for strength as I try to carry on.
My family and friends have been great. They have called, they have hugged me, they have written notes, they have prayed. I ate lunch with one friend today who listened so intently as I recalled the ways I had seen God at work in the last couple of weeks including the opportunity to see my dad one last time the Saturday before he died. I recalled how glad I was that God gave me the opportunity to stroke my dad’s head, to kiss his cheek, to tell him how much I looked forward to seeing him again one day. I told him to go on – that the one he cried out to in March to forgive his sins and be his Savior was waiting for him.
He died the following Tuesday.
Since then I have needed more than my friends and family can give. Jesus had another encounter with a sister of Lazarus when he arrived at his tomb. Both Mary and Martha said the same thing to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” Yet Jesus had a very different response for Martha. Rather than crying, he spoke to her, “Your brother will rise again…I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in my will live, even if he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
Not only is Jesus the comforter in my grief, he is also the conqueror in my despair.
I need this hope now more than ever before in my life. I know this hope empowers me to press on as I experience the burden of life here – life as it is not supposed to be. This hope reminds me that one day Jesus will “make all things new” and life will be restored to what it was meant to be. In that day, I will be with my dad, where we will share a richer, deeper relationship than we ever had while he was here.
So, I look to Jesus in my grief and loneliness to speak the words and to weep the tears I need when I need them.
