Becoming stewards of our pain

There's an old saying about how every loss reminds us of every other loss we have ever experienced.

Here’s my May column for the Holland Sentinel…

If you have experienced loss recently, you may not want to read further. Every podcast I listen to these days seems to begin with a trigger warning, so I’m jumping onboard that bandwagon. This column is about grief and loss, and that I’m writing it on a beautiful spring morning doesn’t change the way I feel.

My mom died last month. She was within a week or two of her 97^th birthday, and she had been in hospice care for months. So, her death was not unexpected, and in fact, at the end, my sisters and I were hoping that for her sake she wouldn’t hang on much longer.

The last days were difficult, though probably more difficult for my sisters and me than for her. Her breathing was loud and labored for the last several hours, and then suddenly it wasn’t. Her breaths became quiet and shallow before she mercifully breathed her last one.

I will probably not forget those last hours, and I will probably not forget the last months, making the long drive into Grand Rapids and sitting with her for long stretches, sometimes watching her sleep and other times having a tea party. I would walk to the dining room of her assisted living unit and get two Styrofoam cups filled with hot water. Then, from her closet, I would get tea bags and Hershey’s chocolates, an unexpectedly sweet communion, which we would share in silence. I decided then that if I am ever in hospice care, I will eat chocolate too, even if it’s just before lunch.

The days after she died have been filled with unexpected feelings. I remembered an old saying about how every loss reminds us of every other loss we have ever experienced. And you don’t get to my age without having experienced lots of losses, some big, others small, but always painful in their own way. I find myself remembering people and events that I would prefer not to think about, but there they are.

My friend, Jeff Munroe, is a local author, and he recently published a book, which I recommend, titled Telling Stories in the Dark: Finding Healing and Hope in Sharing Our Sadness, Grief, Trauma, and Pain. Early on, he uses the phrase “stewardship of pain,” which he borrows from Frederick Buechner, who like me was a Presbyterian pastor. Most of us would wonder why we should do anything at all with pain, let alone trying to be stewards of it. But pain, like grief, that is left untended can take on a life of its own.

To quote still another author, the Franciscan priest and writer Richard Rohr says that “if we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it – usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children.” Using all of that as starting point, Jeff then tells several stories about people who have dealt with and learned from their losses. It’s not easy work. But there can be a kind of grace in it.

I sat in a Hope Academy of Senior Professionals classroom not long ago, and I listened as Jeff read stories from his book. I found the whole thing wrenching, to be honest about it, and told him so after class, but I also found myself deeply engaged and finding comfort. I even listened as class members began to tell their own stories, and it occurred to me that we were beginning to do what Jeff had encouraged us to do – becoming stewards of our pain by naming it, talking about it, and looking for meaning in it.

Not long ago, I wrote a piece for another publication about those long hours of sitting with my mom. I mentioned the tea and chocolate, of course, but also noted that she told me how proud she was of me. Not everyone has the opportunity, I know, but we were able to tell each other that we loved each other. I was even able to ask a few questions about topics that I had always wondered about. And she told me that she looked forward to being re-united with my dad, which is how she understood life after death.

What I was not prepared for was how many responses I received from people who had experienced something similar. When I wrote, I was thinking only of myself, but it turns out that I am not alone. We are not alone in our grief, unless we choose to be.