Originally written at the unexpected death of a dear uncle, Ronald Gunlock.
Doug McCulley, May 2018. doug.newjersey@yahoo.com
Grief Comes in Waves
To those who grieve:
Your hurt is so severe because your love for him, and his love for you, was dear and deep. No words can make it better, but it may help to know that grief is experienced in waves.
Grief is like being on a sunny deck of a ship, but then the ship suddenly evaporates, and you are thrown into a cold ocean without warning.
There is a shock, a disorientation, a disbelief as one tries to grasp the reality of the cold water and the need to come to the surface to breathe.
Even though you are wearing a floatation device and able to catch your breath for a moment, large waves sweep you under again and again. Sometimes you are aware of others, who like you, are making every effort to stay at the surface just to find air.
You try to reach to help them and they to help you— but the waves and currents conspire to have alternating moments of being alone again in the cold and other times holding onto others as they too struggle for air.
Between the crashing waves of pain you may experience a numbness— a bizarre, calm, quiet emptiness in midst of great emotional turmoil.
As you all try to help each other back to the safety, it becomes a process of enduring the waves– waves that sometimes catch you off guard, other times you see them coming.
Sometimes the waves push you toward solid ground, other times it feels as if you are as far away as you were in the beginning. Grief comes in waves. Even if you are aware that the ship is going to sink, and believe you are prepared for what is about to happen, once you are thrown into the water, you are in a battle with the waves of grief.
And there will be a day that you will begin with a few hours NOT thinking of your loss, but then the wave will come, and you may even feel guilty for briefly feeling somewhat normal. There will be moments of “I need to be sure to tell him this or that” then realizing he is beyond our words. Later that will become a frustrated, “O, how I wish he were here to see or hear this.”
The pain will lessen. It will become more like an ache— a strange mixture of emptiness, sadness, gratitude, and joyous confidence. However, even then, be warned that there will be unexpected waves of oppressive grief that may last a few seconds— or all day.
We take some comfort in all our memories
… the lives he touched, the people he encouraged—However,
Our assurance, our hope, our foundation
is that he is waiting
in the glorious presence of God Himself.
All of mankind’s greatest thoughts and conceptions of all time, all added together would not fill a second of God’s eternity.
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.
May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts.
2 Corinthians 29 & 2 Thessalonians 516 & 17
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