The Labor of Grief

There is a true suffering to grief.  Invisible, but sharper than a lot of physical pain.  Unrepeatable and unique as each snowflake.  Sharper than the point of a spear.  Silent, hidden, interior, and deafening.

It hits like braxton hicks contractions, after time has passed.  They say that time heals, but time does not heal.  A wound needs to be cleaned, bandaged, and properly cared for.  Time alone does not heal it, neither does all the patience in the world.  Time contributes to its healing, but first it must be addressed and tended to.  Pain can resurface at any moment, even the most unexpected moments–like braxton hicks.

You look all around, as if somehow someone else could have felt that shock that startled you, but you alone felt the reminder.  You alone felt that fleeting memory, that burst of emotion, that raw flick as if your entire abdomen tensed in an unsuspected and unwelcome braxton hick.  Because, time does not heal.

Later, you think it has passed.  Maybe it has for some time.  But the braxton hick only riled up the most intimate muscles until you’re dragged into the labor of suffering.

Others can see your tears, but no one can quite see your pain and perhaps that’s what makes you feel so alone.  The loneliness of suffering is another kind of knife plummeting deeper.  The grief drags and pulls down.  Makes you bear down, makes you grit your teeth.  One wave after another.  There is no doctor to tell you it will pass.  No midwife, no nurse to walk you through.  This is the labor of grief.

It is natural to fight it. We fight headaches with acetaminophen, heartburn with chalky tablets, labor with epidurals.  We resist pain. We ease pain. We hide from pain.  We cannot hide from this.

One wave ripples through, then another. All else disappears as the agonizing sorrow drags you down.  Your breathing excelorates.  Another wave, this one taking the breath right out of your lungs.  You have to resist, you must resist.  The harder you fight it, the harder it hits.  You are alone.  Darkness threatens your very soul.  The pain is so intense, so raw, like the first time it struck you.  The memories swirl as if you were right there again when your beloved died, when part of your heart left with them forever.  You are alone.

It’s almost like you’re choking and gasping for air and there isn’t any.  There is no reprieve.  It must be a nightmare.  But it is not, and it hurts, oh it hurts!  You are ALONE!

Wait. That voice saying you are alone, it is the voice of the enemy.

You are never alone.  You are never forsaken.  Even in this moment of crippling grief, you are not alone. 

Does it hurt so much because we are convinced that in this grief, this pain, we are alone?  Wherever there is darkness, the prince of darkness threatens to consume.  But, wherever there is darkness, it just takes a single flame from a match to dispel it.  Where is my faith?  Where is my heart?  Shredded from the memories, longing to cry out like Martha, “Lord, if you had only been there, my brother would not have died.”

The same God who Martha cried out to, who wept with her, and raised her brother from the dead, is the same God who we cry out to, who weeps with us, who has our beloved in His hands.

Listen, the enemy says, “You are alone!”  He uses our grief to trick us and convince us.

Jesus says, “And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt 28:20)  There is our light, and it is much, much brighter than a single match.  Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

We have a choice when we are struck with the labor of grief.  Do we fall into the snares of despair so hastily thrown out by the devil?  Do we believe the lie that we are alone?  Do we drown in the grief which gives birth to crippling anxiety, stress, depression, and fear? 

Or do we see the light?  Do we recognize He is weeping with us?  Do we allow the mystery of His life-saving love to engulf us?  To take over the labor of grief and change it into a labor of love?  Then the jabbing pain is no longer bitter, but bittersweet?  When we no longer feel isolation, but profound love and unity with the One who knew no suffering but chose to come as a Man to feel suffering for our sake, and who feels this grief deeply with us.  Then, we look up and the sky no longer seems vast and threatening, but full of a cloud of witnesses praying for us so deeply. 

This labor of grief, it can become a labor of love which gives birth to the fruits of Heaven; which fills us with love, hope, peace, and even joy.

In the labor of grief, we are not alone.  We have the Divine Physician, and His healing remedies are found every time we visit our Mother Church.  The Sacraments are truer than the best medicines and they are free.  His love pours forth from the tabernacles.  His grace is ready to be lavished on us.  Time does not heal.  Love heals, and when we surrender to it and no longer resist, our labor of grief becomes a labor of love. You are not alone.  Now let yourself be loved.