Category: Grief

Posted on

exerpt from “Streams In The Desert”

The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:

It isn’t raining rain for me, it’s raining daffodils;
In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn’t raining rain for me: it’s raining roses down.

Perchance some one of God’s chastened children is even now saying, “O God, it is raining hard for me tonight. Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”

Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn’t raining rain for you. It’s raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father’s Word, under that b eating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease as never able to beget in your innermost soul.

Posted on

Sunday May 30, 2010


Excerpts from

I Will Carry You

By Angie Smith (& husband Todd)

Our biggest problem in life during the girls’ younger years were things like finding the sixth shoe. I miss those days. We made plans for forever, like you’re supposed to do when you’re a family. (p. 7)

I stared in the mirror as I got ready to go out that day, looking at my reflection and imagining what it was going to look like in the coming days. I never got the chance to see that. (p. 7)

I would stay awake at night and wonder if I would ever have children… I couldn’t help but wonder if motherhood wasn’t going to happen the way I had always dreamed it would. (p. 8)

Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. –Saint Augustine (p. 17)

It really didn’t feel like this could be happening to us; after all, we were such a normal family. Things like this just don’t happen to people like us, right? (p. 17)

I feel into Todd’s lap and begged him to tell me it wasn’t happening. Not again. (p. 17)

It is the look a doctor has when he is about to tell a tearful mommy that her baby is going to die and nothing can be done about it. (p. 17)

My mind is a little fuzzy on the next few minutes because I was making a conscious effort not to pass out. It was too much to process, too much to try and incorporate into reality. (p. 18)

The room was silent in a way I have never experienced silence. (p. 18)

We spoke a thousand words that were never heard in this world as we both started to come to terms with what was happening. He put my head on his chest, and as much as I’m sure he wanted to tell me everything was going to be OK, there was really no point. (p. 18)

I looked out the window at the people below and thought it was so strange that life looked normal. (p. 18)

Even in that desperate place, I felt the Lord urging me not to succumb to my fears. (p. 19)

I burst into tears—sobbing, shaking, screaming, unintelligibly crying. (p. 19)

We collapsed into each other’s arms and wailed, thinking of all we didn’t know on the night we had said those precious words: For better or for worse… in sickness and in health… (p. 21)

I am pretty comfortable saying He is in complete control until the ground grows weak beneath me. At that point I tell Him what He should do to fix it. (p. 23)

People shuffled past us, lost in their normal lives. (p. 24)

He may give us today with her, or He may give us the rest of our lives. Either way, we are going to be purposeful, and we are going to live it to the fullest.” (p. 24)

She needed permission to hope. We all did actually. (p. 26)

I would wake up in the morning, and it would hit me over and over again that it was real. It seemed that every encounter with other people was so weighed down by the reality of my hurt that I could barely stand it. (p. 27)

I simply couldn’t talk about it anymore. (p. 27)

I decided to start writing a blog… It was good therapy… I didn’t have to see the look in people’s eyes or watch them uncomfortably search for the right words when we both knew there just weren’t any. (p. 27)

I sat, fully humbled, as many I love spoke wisdom over me, and I admitted to myself that I was going to need help to get through this season of life. (p. 27)

I just buried my head in her shoulder and let it out, grasping for sanity in the chaos. (p. 28)

As I drove, I began to pound the steering wheel and scream. I literally beat it with my fists and wailed as I begged the Lord… (p. 28)

What I needed to learn about myself was clear in that moment. I did believe in Him enough to call out. I trusted Him enough to share the brokenness, even though He already knew it all. (p. 29)

It is hard to accept that anyone, even the God of the universe, could love your child the way that you do. (p. 30)

There was no room to consider the cost of investing my heart; I was already head over heels in love with her. (p. 30)

At the end of every day, regardless of what it had held, we knew that she had been given to us for a purpose, and we were seeking wisdom as we embraced that. (p. 30)

Sharing my story opened so many doors to conversation that would never have taken place. (p. 32)

They were the tears of a mother who was just beginning to understand how much she had taken for granted in this life. (p. 36)

We saw each other for what we were—women who were often just going through the motions of normalcy, partly for our children and partly for ourselves. I began to realize that this was going to be a part of my new life because the world has a way of going on all around you even when you are in the depths of sorrow that belie its pace and fervor. (p. 40)

Here is a woman [Mary] who watched her beloved brother [Lazarus] die. Yet, as soon as she hears that Jesus is near, she cannot help but gather up her dress around her and run to Him. Do you? I am speaking from experience when I say it doesn’t always come naturally. But I also know that every time her feet hit the ground and people turned to see her scurrying past them, her Father was glorified. (p. 47)

I was not present to care for the girls because I hurt so much in so many ways. This is the hardest part to bear. (p. 51)

We can’t begin to imagine the road that lies ahead of us, but I know that I will remember today as being a day that I trusted Him despite the hurt. (p. 58)

All the months, all the dreams, all the hopes for a miracle. Gone. (p. 60)

Joy is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ. (p. 62)

I closed my eyes and prayed for the Lord to sustain me. For the strength to accept that the cup had not passed. For trust in Him despite that I felt horribly, maddeningly betrayed. (p. 63)

I knew she wasn’t there anymore, but the mother’s heart doesn’t know how to stop loving, even in the wake of death. (p. 65)

I caught myself moving gently as if I was rocking my own daughter, but my arms were empty. My body couldn’t accept it any more than my heart could. (p. 68)

“I thought that prattling boys and girls would fill this empty room. That my rich heart would gather flowers from childhood’s opening bloom. One child and two graves are mine, this is God’s gift to me; a bleeding, fainting, broken heart, this if my gift to Thee.” –Elizabeth Prentiss, 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 185 (p. 71)

People constantly ask how it is that I am not angry with the Lord. My honest answer is that I have been angry, and I have been disappointed. What I have not been, and what I refuse to be, is disbelieving. (p. 72)

Do you believe that the Lord is who He says He is and that He has accomplished what He says He has accomplished? If you do, then know that you are walking a road that leads to Him and to your precious lost children. No, they will not return to us. But one day, not so far from now, we will go to them. (p. 75)

I know she isn’t really in there; it’s just that her knees are, and I would have loved to kiss them after she fell. I need to mourn the loss of the arms that cannot wrap around me here. Braided hair, a wedding dress, her first wiggly tooth. They are deep within the ground, never to be mine. I needed to feel that loss, and I did. I do. (p. 79)

We have done very bit of what we felt we could. We trusted Him. We called on Him. We awaited His appearance and even fought doubt as the days passed because above all else, He is good… right? (p. 80)

His power is never too small for everyone else, it seems; but when it’s me, it feels intangible and unlikely. (p. 81)

Instead of spending your days focusing on your sense of hurt or loss, allow the Lord to bless you with the grace to believe that what lies ahead will glorify Him. It is the closest thing to true worship that we have in this life, and so often we miss it. (p. 81)

As a Christian, I know that I am called to glorify the Lord no matter the circumstance, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to make sense. (p. 84)

I just felt like the wind had whipped through and knocked me down, deep down into a place I didn’t want to be. A place where the answers are fewer than the questions. A place where God seems hidden, just slightly, by the shadows of this broken life. It is an easy place to get comfortable because all of your hurts are justified and the tears give way to doubt while you meant to pick yourself right back up. (p. 90)

I don’t know where you are tonight, or what hurts you are holding up to God, but I will promise you this. If you can just trust Him enough to bring it to Him, He will rejoice in your masterpiece. And if you need to scream a little, know that you have a God who can take that too, as long as your face is tilted (even slightly) toward Him. (p. 92)

The process of healing has been winding and unpredictable to me. One day I’m starting to feel like myself again, and even that can make me feel guilty sometimes. I feel like I don’t have a right to be normal. (p. 92)

Life in pieces, never to be put back together. (p. 96)

This marked the beginning of a season of questioning for me… I couldn’t help but feel like we were being targeted. (p. 96)

Seeing someone you love suffer so desperately with no relief in sight is a dreadful feeling. We tried everything we could, always aware that the break would be momentary, and then we would dig into the hurt again. (p. 98)

I cannot seem to find my way these past few days. I have bruises on my legs from bumping into furniture that has not moved in years. I got lost driving home the other night from a familiar place and didn’t even realize I was lost until I had been driving in the wrong direction for almost fifteen minutes. All day long I forget the most simple words, the most familiar faces, the words to a song I know by heart. Sometimes I just stand in the shower with the water scalding my skin so that I can feel something that registers. My brain just doesn’t know its way around the sorrow. (p. 100)

I know the steps of grief. They look great on paper along with all the other multiple-choice questions, but in reality they aren’t that simple. They jump back and forth at a pace that is completely unpredictable. (p. 102)

It’s really a delicate balance between letting yourself grieve the way you need to and functioning in a world that keeps reminding you of what you have lost. (p. 102)

The truth is that to some degree, every day I have here is another day without her. I don’t know when I will be able to see life any differently. (p. 102)

None of us grieves the same way, and one of the best things we can do is to give ourselves permission to live that out. (p. 103)

You may need to reprioritize your relationships in order to grieve in an authentic way. This can be a challenge, but it is worth it. (p. 105)

Part of trying to cultivate a grateful heart is looking for opportunities to share the gospel through my loss and seeking ways to bring God glory through the loss. (p. 105)

One of the things that meant the world to me was that people acknowledged that we had lost her. (p. 111)

There is no normal. There is the loss, and there is the Lord. That balance dictates the season, not the changing leaves or the anniversaries of death. (p. 112)

People are uncomfortable swimming in another’s grief. The way they respond to it is, naturally, to try and fix the situation. Of course, they can’t…Yet sometimes the right thing is to say nothing at all. It’s just to be there, available, willing, authentic. (p. 114)

People’s natural instincts are to rush us through our grieving because they love us so much. A time will come when we are ready to take the next step, but that is between the Lord and ourselves. In the meantime, please be sensitive to those who are grieving, aware that they may not be able to do “normal” things for a while. (p. 114)

We had friends come over and play with the girls, do laundry, sweep the floors, mow the lawn, and drop off thoughtful gifts. I felt more gratitude than I knew how to express because grief made me not want to do anything other than survive. (p. 116)

Be on your knees for your friends and commit to seeing it through, however long that takes. Believe that the Lord can use you, because He can. (p. 117)

We aren’t going to feel whole in this life, and we will long for something we don’t have. Something that will fill the nagging void that intermittently stings and knocks us to our knees. And all the while, Satan taunts us, telling us our faith is small. To hurt so deeply is a sign that we live in a fallen world, not that we serve a small God. (p. 118)

Daily I must remind myself that He is not threatened by my doubt nearly as much as He is glorified by my faith. (p. 118)

I didn’t feel like I lost a baby; I felt like I said goodbye to someone I had always known, who had been my daughter for years and years. (p. 123)

I have learned that grief is a dance. I do it rather clumsily much of the time, but as it turns out, I am in good company. Others who have lost children have shared the inability to separate the sorrow from the joy in life. (p. 126)

Our Lord is bigger than any of the trials He asks us to walk through, yet I also recognize the hurt that threatens to steal our joy at any moment. It is a decision we must make, many times even in a day, to choose to believe that our Father is good. (p. 127)

We miss them, Lord. We trust You to love them well, every day strengthening us to press on without them. (p. 127)

Angie and I grieved differently. For Angie it was a constant process… for me it comes in cycles. Angie was constantly reminded of Audrey and was so connected with her because she was carrying her. She was always mourning for her… It hurt her because I didn’t grieve as intensely as she did. I think sometimes she felt alone… I was frustrated and angry with myself because I didn’t grieve like she did. I felt guilty and in turn angry… Whereas so many nights Angie was heartbroken, I would be OK and was able to move forward. I went into survival mode… Part of me didn’t want to deal with the whole thing. It is so overwhelming. (p. 132)

Your family is hurting, and you are bearing burdens you don’t know how you’re going to overcome. (p. 133)

Don’t try to be tough, or have all the answers, or act like it’s not affecting you. Please don’t harden your heart to safeguard yourself from the child you are losing. I continue to grieve in my own way. It may come several times a week, or it may be several times a month; but when it hits, it hits hard. (p. 133)

If He is good, then we need to praise Him no matter what comes our way, even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when we come away not having answers. As a man it is so important that as you lead, you have one foot on Earth and one in heaven… Lean on other men. Don’t run away from God… Pray for God’s help, for His wisdom, for Him to give you faith and hope, even when it feels pointless and hollow. (p. 135)

If you are running from God, run to Him. Stay close to Him as you lead your family. You can be angry with Him the whole time, but go to Him. I believe God would prefer we yell and scream at Him but be in constant communication with Him than be silent and turn our backs on Him. (p. 135)

It’s horrible. It’s devastating. We will never be the same. It will never be fixed in this life. We are completely powerless to do anything. There are no answers… Death is awful. It hurts you to your core. Don’t sugarcoat death. It is what it is. (p. 137)

The shift if our home’s atmosphere was palpable, and children even younger than Kate can sense that. Infants who are living in the wake of loss do not understand death, but they understand that Mommy is sad or that Daddy seems to be distant. They need to be held and comforted, reassured that you aren’t abandoning them to your grief. (p. 140)

The one thing I will say about grieving in the presence of your children is that you should. Don’t hide away and wear a perfect smile, pretending that everything is OK; because whether or not you say it, they know it isn’t. Your children know the way you make their beds, the way you cut their sandwiches, the way you kiss them goodnight. (p. 141)

Posted on

Saturday May 29, 2010

In the deepness and darkness of our sorrow, we feel the arms of Christ around us. Stacks of cards and emails, voicemail messages, references to our Victory Athanasius in the church service, babysitting & help tending my home, making Gabriel feel special, friends bringing food, gift cards for food, figurines and chimes and candies, gorgeous flower arrangements — these things are Christ’s arms extended by His people to fill our home with love. Although it does not truly lessen our grief, it does bring some measure of comfort amidst the pain. To know such tangible love of our family & friends, both those close as well as those distant & can not sit in the dust with us, somehow helps us get through this dark valley, one step at a time. Each step is difficult. And sometimes they are backward steps instead of forward.
We are empty, very weak, feeling hopeless.
And so we are especially thankful for the arms of Christ which enfold us. So tangibly.
We need that.

Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

I don’t understand this verse. And I don’t know what to learn from it.
But I can tell you that it is Truth. Painful, beautiful Truth.

Posted on

Wednesday May 26, 2010

Everything reminds me of my pain. Reminds me of what I desire but do not have. Reminds me of what I had but have lost. Reminds me of my overwhelming grief.

  • Water – because what’s the point of drinking so much when all it does is remind me that when I am pregnant, I should drink 64 ounces a day; but now I’m empty, so who cares.
  • Coffee – we’ve been off caffeine for a year and a half now, but what’s the point anyway?
  • Vitamins – why take them when they don’t seem to be helping my body.
  • Clothes – I put off buying new clothes, new bras, even new underwear because I am always getting pregnant and thinking “soon I will need a different size anyway”… and then never do.
  • My arms – because they are covered in scars and bruises from all the various needles that have recently penetrated my veins.
  • My body – because the pooch reminds me of what I had, and the lack of belly reminds me of what I don’t have.
  • My face – the break-outs that show my hormones are once again going nuts.
  • Going to the bathroom – that doesn’t need explained, right?
  • Food – I am not ever hungry anymore, but I am always thinking, “oh I need to eat because of the baby…” and then remember, “oh wait, no I don’t.” And then there’s the list of things that I avoid while pregnant, and can’t stand when I’m not: tuna, sandwich meat, soft cheese, caffeine, alcohol…
  • Friends – because everyone is pregnant or cradling a newborn.
  • Church – ditto.
  • Bible study – we’re studying biblical womanhood & right now the subject is “woman as life giver.” Need I say more?
  • Photographs – remembering who I was pregnant with in various photos, remembering who “should have” been in various photos, noticing how small a family photo looks with only three people.
  • Holidays and special occasions – wondering how to celebrate in the midst of such grief.
  • Laptop – I never hold it on my lap when I am pregnant. It feels weird even now.
  • Cell phone – I get a chill when it rings, because the contrast between the nurse’s grave voice and my mother’s sweet “hi, pregnant lady” stuns me even now.
  • Our car – for Gabriel’s 2nd birthday we turned his carseat around like a big boy. And I always wonder if we will ever have a reason to get a bigger car. Dreams of a minivan or Suburban are diminishing in the distance.
  • Nursery – realizing that Gabriel is getting too old to be in a baby room. Realizing that I can’t emotionally handle redecorating it, or moving him to another room & letting it sit empty.
  • Basement – where all the baby things are being relegated; the swing, the carseat, the toys, the clothes; all the things we expected to need again. Now thinking we probably never will.
  • Garden – where I (alone with my thoughts) plant seeds and they grow. And I wonder why peas and zucchini and tomatoes don’t miscarry.
  • Herb boxes – where the basil I planted grew a little and then stopped. Reminding me of my babies.
  • Making dinner – trying to figure out how to cook for only 3, and thinking that I may never have to learn how to cook for 5 or how to cook for 7.
  • Washing diapers – knowing these days are soon coming to an end. Wondering if they’ll ever return.
  • A full night’s sleep – desperately wishing that I would be woken up every 2 hours.
  • Toys – packing away all the infant toys, wondering if I should give them away or save them. Feeling like saving them is clinging to a vapor.
  • My bed – where all this grief ultimately began. And where I cry it out every night. And where my dreams haunt me.
  • The shower – where I can not hide from my emotions, my body, my emptiness.
  • Books – they all seem to be either about grief, faith, or womanhood; all of which sting the wound.
  • Bible – somewhat comforting, somewhat harsh, but always a reminder.
  • Prayer – wondering if my prayers “avail much” or not. Because they don’t seem to from my limited perspective.

These are just the first things that popped into my head. It’s not a complete list. There is not a time of the day when I am alone without my thoughts. No matter what I do, they are with me. Why can’t I turn the switch to “off” now & then? It would sure be nice. To get away from my grief. To hide from it for a while. To feel like I can smile and celebrate without it being a facade to make everyone else around me less uncomfortable.
Someday I would like to look back and think that these things are all redeemed. That they will become glorious and bright instead of gloomy and dark. Pleasantries instead of grievous.
I’m not holding my breath, but I am seeking God’s grace.

Posted on

Saturday May 22, 2010

Isaiah 45:5-7
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
besides Me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know Me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides Me;
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Calamity. In my home. Where we grieve the death of our youngest baby.
And calamity. In the home of my friend. Where she grieves the death of her baby girl today too.
We stand with them in their grief.
We weep together for the deaths of our covenant children.
Perplexed at the calamities around us.
Certain that God is good, and equally as certain that He is terrible.

Psalm 6:2-3
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD— how long?
Posted on

Thursday May 20, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

I cannot tell you how much I detest writing these things. May God be gracious.
On Monday we learned that the child Melissa and I were expecting has gone to join five siblings in the loving arms of our Lord. God is good and faithful, even when our eyes of flesh fail to see it through the tears of grief. Please be in prayer for us. We feel like we have gone 6 rounds with a prize fighter. It is very hard to look ahead with any hope and in times like this faith does not come easy. Pray that God would supply grace for our every need. Pray that God would mend our broken hearts and carry us forward in peace. Pray that we would mourn the loss of another child in righteousness and that we would flee from the temptations to doubt, fear or let bitterness and anger taint our hearts. Pray that God would show His strength in our weakness.

We have named our baby Victory Athanasius, which means “victory of the immortal”. Christ has defeated sin and death. He is our first-fruits; our guarantee of eternal life. Our baby has put on immortality and is reveling in the victory bought by our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has triumphed, and our child wears the white robes of His righteousness now and forever more.

“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:54-56)

May God grant His perfect grace and peace. To Him be the glory, even in the unrelenting tears.

Steven

Posted on

Tuesday May 18, 2010

Just got home from the hospital, so it’s time to rest. But I wanted to thank you for all the compassion, love, and especially prayers. I am so thankful for that. It feels like the emotional pain is just never ending. Thank you for being our brethren. I don’t know how much I will update on the subject – but please know that we continually covet your prayers.

Posted on

Monday May 17, 2010

I don’t want to write this, and -in fact- I don’t know what to say.
Baby Seven will not be joining us for our Christmas picture this year.
Instead, we found out that this baby is already singing hallelujahs with five older siblings.

This was confirmed today (although we had thought things were going so well), and tomorrow I will be undergoing an outpatient surgery. Please pray for us. As though it isn’t enough to be grieving the loss of another child, we have so many medical decisions facing us. It is hard to think clearly when we are swimming in such grief. Please pray that our grief would not cloud our judgment. Please pray that God would give us wise counselors. Please pray for my protection, physically, tomorrow. Please pray that we would find comfort in one another, and in our miracle Gabriel. And please pray that God would give us peace in moving forward – whatever that means.

Posted on

Monday May 10, 2010


I found so much Truth in the pages penned in this book.

So without further ado, here are my favored

excerpts & quotes from

A Grief Observed

by C. S. Lewis

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. (p. 1)

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all… Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this “commonsense” vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace. (p. 2)

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job—where the machine seems to run on much as usual—I loathe the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much. (p. 3)

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. (p. 9)

I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now. By writing it all down (all?—no: one thought in a hundred) I believe I get a little outside it [grief]. (p. 10)

Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. (p. 11)

One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. (p. 13)

What pitiable cant to say, “She will live forever in my memory!” Live? That is exactly what she won’t do. (p. 22)

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. (p. 25)

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand. (p. 28)

And poor C. quotes to me, “Do not mourn like those that have no hope.” It astonished me, the way we are invited to apply to ourselves words so obviously addressed to our betters. What St. Paul says can comfort only those who love God better than the dead, and the dead better than themselves. If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a great thing, that she may still hope to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild. (p. 30)

Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It’s doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on. (p. 38)

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. (p. 38)

I hear a clock strike and some quality it always had before has gone out of the sound. What’s wrong with the world to make it so flat, shabby, worn-out looking? Then I remember. (p. 40)

This is one of the things I’m afraid of. The agonies, the mad midnight moments, must, in the course of nature, die away. But what will follow? Just this apathy, this dead flatness? Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea? (p. 41)

What do people mean when they say, “I am not afraid of God because I know He is good”? Have they never even been to the dentist? (p. 51)

The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear. (p. 53)

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string; then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontier-post across it. So many roads once; now to many culs de sac. (p. 55)

When you have learned to do quadratics and enjoy doing them you will not be set them much longer. The teacher moves you on. (p. 57)

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down. (p. 61)

Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off it is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has “got over it.” But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. (p. 61)

Still, there’s no denying that in some sense I “feel better,” and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one’s unhappiness. (p. 62)

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing “stays put.” One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? (p. 66)

How often—will it be for always?—how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, “I never realized my loss till this moment”? The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again. (p. 67)

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don’t stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat. (p. 68)

I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one. (p. 71)

Turned to God, my mind no longer meets that locked door; turned to H., it no longer meets that vacuum—nor all that fuss about my mental image of her. My jottings show something of the [grieving] process, but not so much as I’d hoped. Perhaps both changes were really not observable. There was no sudden, striking, and emotional transition. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight. When you first notice them they have already been going on for some time. (p. 71)

Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all. (p. 79)

When I lay these questions before God I get no answers. But a rather special sort of “No answer.” It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, “Peace, child; you don’t understand.” (p. 81)

There is also, whatever it means, the resurrection of the body. We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least. (p. 89)

How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain, “I am at peace with God.” She smiled, but not at me. (p. 89)