Love after they're gone.

When they can’t reach back, we still reach for them. It’s called love, and that’s why it hurts.

I’m not a grief expert, so what you’re going to get here is not a trove of wisdom. I am a grief novice, and this is more like a ship’s log, my way of charting this new course called loss.

The giant elephant in the room is this: We’ve lost three parents in the past six months.

Our hearts are hollow, weary, and even in the really great days (and there are, surprisingly, many), the absence of these large and loved figures in our lives is the translucent ghost that overlays our lives.

There’s also that little old Worldwide Pandemic and a myriad of other elephants of varying sizes, too: career disruptions, disconnection from people and communities, physical maladies, cultural losses, loss of civility. Oregon has thrown in some bizarre, natural disasters to keep us pivoting, reeling and reacting.

“I’m braced for locusts,” a friend said this week. Somewhere you are grieving a loss, too.

Everything has changed! While some changes bring with them blessing, each change also represents the loss of something, and therefore a grief.

What do we do with all the elephants crowding the room?

We have some choices:

1. We can pretend it’s not there. “What elephant? No elephant here. Everything is fine.” To keep this one up for long, we have to choose to live in a lie, and busy ourselves to keep the truth from coming to the surface. Lies can feel better than the truth for a while, but they are quicksand, because they aren’t real.

2. We can lock the door behind us and run fast, certain the elephant will crush us if we give it even a glance. But refusing to let our grief catch up with us keeps us tied to fear, always on the run. In our frenzy to avoid the scary pain, we are never able to be free from it.

3. Or we can get to know the elephant.

It’s this last option I’m trying to embrace, willing myself to let grief arrive, ebb, flow, and occasionally overwhelm. I’m staring down the monster, learning to coexist peaceably with grief, and learn the lessons it has to teach me.

Grief has been both relentless and kind to me. Reaching the end of my parents’ respective journeys closes a lot of open books. Before the end, we only know the story THIS FAR, and we live in the tension of what is yet to come, what might happen. We also live with the pain of their pain as their bodies and minds break down. Our grief is a living one as we do our best to prop them up and fix their broken places.

But when the story closes and we set down the book, suddenly we see it all. It has an ending, the plot lines were rich, and guess what? The growing tension of their story has settled into a beautiful, God-filled plot held together by the grip of God and grace.

The growing tension of their story has settled into a beautiful, God-filled plot held together by the grip of God and grace.

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My Dad was the first to go. I am so tempted--hungry, in fact--to tell you the Whole Story: the giant my Dad was, his slow unravelling, the tension and angst, and the beauty of how God tenderly, kindly walked him home. I’ll resist! Because then I’d need to tell you the other two, lovely, grace-filled, delicious stories, and we would be writing books.

So, skipping their rich life stories, I hop to the end, first to the wonder that supported me after Dad’s passing. Life, friends, is full of trouble, problems and pain. Love, too, and a generous dose of laughter, but also tears and fears. But with that final exhale, rest blanketed my father, and wonder blanketed me. Wonder at God’s kindness, his timing. Wonder at the days of caring and connection before Dad’s end. Wonder at the whole trajectory of Dad’s life story. I could see Dad in his fullness again, capture the whole man that he was and the impact of his life, his faith, and his work. The brokenness of dementia and angst in his last days was swept away by wholeness and wonder.

And close on the heels of wonder came the deep, deep sense of loss. I could not stay away from Dad’s grave, longing to be near him again, wishing I could touch even the 91-year-old, broken version of Dad as he lay in his hospital bed. I had the wild notion to lay right there on top of his grave to be as close as I could get.

“I don’t want you back,” I told him as I sobbed at his grave, though I desperately did want him back for a moment. For the record, my Dad wasn’t there, just the memory of him and beneath the soil the silent, spent remains of him. I think souls in heaven have better things to do than to hover over their graves to see who will visit.

“I don’t want you back. I love that you are whole and in heaven. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” And then I would tell him what a good man he was and how I wished to be even half the person he was, how I was doing, how Mom was. I talked and wept, not because he was listening, but because I wasn’t done loving, and I had more words to say.

I talked and wept, not because he was listening, but because I wasn’t done loving, and I had more words to say.

Those visits to where Dad’s body lay surprised me as deep grief, like giant breakers, washed over me and knocked me over. How could I be so pleased with Dad’s ending, and yet be in such anguish for the loss of this little, giant man?

When they can’t reach back, we still reach for them. It’s called love, and that’s why it hurts.

If you have deep grief to feel, you are among the lucky ones. Go ahead and feel it. It won’t swallow you, I promise.

I think the first time I didn’t feel deep waves of grief at Dad’s graveside was the day the gravestone was set. For some entirely ridiculous reason, it felt like a receipt, like the final stamp making official that Dad’s new residence was elsewhere. I was euphoric. My eyes drank in the engraving of Mt. Rainier, a place significant in both my parents’ stories. It made me picture the photo hanging in my kitchen, the one where Dad is on the top of that mountain, raising his hands and his ice-axe in triumph--the same victory sign I imagine when I picture him entering heaven.

I ran my fingers across his name, the dates of his life, my Mom’s birth date, and these words, which were like cold spring water to my parched soul:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Great is Thy faithfulness!”

Amen!!! Amen.

In future visits, I busied myself with tidying his grave, bringing a Christmas tree decorated with seed ornaments and swags of fruit for the birds. Helpful for me, but I’m sure it did the birds no good, and the deer who wandered in to forage are probably still coughing up the thread. Dumb. But it did my heart good to bring something to my memory of Dad. Loving and remembering aren’t just for the receiver; they feed the soul of the giver.

Loving and remembering aren’t just for the receiver; they feed the soul of the giver.

And before the tree was gone, I stopped by to tell Dad, “I think Mom’s coming home soon.”

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But before my Mom died, and long before the Christmas tree, my father-in-law also left this earth.

George’s life story couldn’t have been more different than my Dad’s, but I’m guessing his entry into heaven was very similar. Instead of hands raised, I picture him, head swiveling in amazement, his heels scuffing the golden streets like they always did my floors[1], and I hear that amused chuckle of his, the one that always ended on an up-note.

I think his eyes were full of childlike wonder, first of all that he made it (I imagine more than a few folks from his earlier days were surprised and relieved to see him wander in), and secondly, because he knew so little about heaven and what to expect. Dad #2 came to saving faith in Christ late in life (see Grief and Wonder for more of his story), and after moving in with us he used to sit beside me in church, growling away at the hymns and winking at the little old ladies. When his hearing got too bad to listen to the sermon, Pops stayed home and got out his Bible to read, slowly and painstakingly. He started in the book of Luke, because his grandson was named Luke.

Pops was living in Kansas with his son Bobby when he passed. It was Covid Season, which comes right after (and before and through) all the hunting seasons that George set his clock by. All that means Pops was far away, and so was family, as we grieved the absence of my second Dad. There were no folks to grieve with, except by phone, and no grave to sit beside, just his clothes hanging in his closet and his pictures under his bed, and my grieving husband to hug and cry with.

We told a lot of stories. Jim finally realized that Dad, who probably annoyed him more than anyone else in the whole world, was also his best friend. We cried, we remembered, and we kept trying to do life, trying to pretend life was normal, because what else could you do? And somehow, faking “normal” created it’s own normal, the steadiness of knowing that when your foundations are shaken and crumbling, there is goodness and rhythm left in life, and you will be okay.

Faking “normal” created it’s own normal, the steadiness of knowing that when your foundations are shaken and crumbling, there is goodness and rhythm left in life, and you will be okay.

Both Jim and I spent a lot of time in photos, editing them, collecting them, creating videos of Dad and putting music to them that still makes us cry each time we play them.

In a way, each parting has had its own soft landing, beautiful timing and precious days of goodbyes, gifts of love orchestrated by our loving heavenly Father. I find my faith more firmly rooted now, after seeing God’s hand so clearly in the dark days.

With George, the distance between us when he left on a trip that turned into 15 months slowly softened the well-worn ruts and patterns of daily life in our home in the years he lived with us. We softly learned how to love him from a distance, which was one step closer to loving him in heaven.

Unbelievably, Jim and Molly had been hunting with Pops just the week before his life-ending stroke, and they each a chance to say a final goodbye. And hours before his death, Dad awoke just enough to wave to me and give me one of his characteristic, slow winks over Facetime! Such a precious parting gift from my second Dad and my heavenly Father.

As I grieve over George, I find myself hanging onto the little pieces of him, afraid I’ll lose him entirely if I don’t. I hang onto that last moment of grace. I hang onto the photos that capture his smile. I enjoy seeing my daughter wear his hat, my husband replay his videos.

When he first moved into our home, Dad didn’t know he had taken over My Chair—the one I longed for and saved for and finally purchased and placed by the fireplace. He didn’t know I thought of it as mine, and it became his slouching chair, the one where he sat with his little dog Sammy curled up in his lap, and over the years it grew grimey and worn. After Dad’s death, I stared wistfully at the chair where he used to sit in his room, the one he carefully protected with blankets, downstairs to take the place of my shabby one. Half of his days here were spent in that chair, watching TV, or “old man hunting” out his upstairs window. In a moment of inspiration I moved it down by the fireplace, replacing the shabby one. It fits me just right, sits solidly, and I feel Dad’s presence around me as I sink into it. I hope, weirdly, that he knows I’m holding onto him each time I nest in his chair.

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And now I’m figuring out how to grieve the fresh departure of my Mom.

I have some advantages. For one, the grief path is less scary on the third trip around the block. I know now that loss can swing from wonder to deep heartache in a moment, but I also know that there is an After The Ache as well. I am confident this time that grief will not swallow me whole. Searing loss will simmer and eventually settle into a quieter kind of wonder, an awareness of the rich honor of my front row seat in these astounding lives.

A second advantage was the long, slow goodbye. If your own loss was jarring and unexpected, someone full of joie de vivre and future plans, yes, your loss and your grief are entirely different than mine! I cannot imagine your grief journey. There is a kindness to losing different pieces of my mother slowly, one at a time, over 15 years of mental and physical decline. Yes, the grief was long and there were lots of tears, but it was also slow, incremental, and threaded with love and moments of joy. With each new loss, I still had HER. I could still touch her, still bring a gift, stroke her hair, make her laugh, hold her hand.

My grief for Mom is only 17 days old as I’m writing, so the pathway through is yet unwritten, but thus far it has been a kind grief.

I felt nearly euphoric the day Mom arrived home on hospice. After a year of limited access to Mom in her care facility, here she was in my home, right where she belonged, surrounded by warmth, care, and the familiar voices of family. We held the tension of her impending departure, but we also held HER, stroking her skin, her hair, sleeping nearby and listening to her steady breathing when we lay awake in the night.

We held the tension of her impending departure, but we also held HER.

There is a gift to being able to love someone tangibly, physically as you are clinging to the memory of them. And honestly, seeing them struggle is its own gift, as it loosens your grip and makes you want more for them, and leads you to welcome their coming rest.

We buried my Mom on a Monday, three days after my quarantine ended and four days before an ice storm shut Oregon down, timing that was just one of a thousand graces, reminders of God’s perfect, watchful care. Family surrounded her grave, our voices alternately singing and breaking, hands held heavenward as we let her go and sang of her future resurrection. Laughter, stories, singing, serving and the gospel of Jesus Christ filled our empty spaces, breathing soft healing into our full hearts.

The grave feels kindlier now. Somehow the fresh mulch of two adjoining graves that share one headstone, as though Mom and Dad are once again sleeping in a double bed, makes me smile. Together. Tomorrow is their 69th wedding anniversary; they never had to spend a single one apart.

“I don’t want you back,” I say to the Mom who isn’t there, and I tell her how deeply I admire her and want to be like her. There are tears and thank you's and sadness, but no bitter sobs as I chatter and tell her the news I wish I could say to this steady woman, this giant absence in my world. She’s gone, but she’s mine, still. And I want so much for her to live on in me.

Grief, oddly, has become a ballast of sorts, a heavy weight that, when put in the right place, provides stability to my ship as it sails forward.

Death has lost its sting.

[1] I know that’s bad theology. Somehow our souls arrive immediately, and some form of our body rises to meet them on what the Bible calls the Last Day, but for now my imagination is limited to what my memory holds.