Dealing with Grief

 

Daniel was sitting in a the chair beside the door when I entered the exam room, waiting patiently for me.  We shook hands and then I sat down.

"How have you been doing?"  I asked him.

"Oh, I guess about the same as ever," he told me.

"Is that good or bad?"  I asked him.

"I think it's good," he responded.  Daniel was seventy-eight years old and only on one prescriptions medication.  He was in for visit for an annual physical and to get a refill on his medication.

I pressed a different tab on my computer and his vitals popped up.  "You've lost some weight," I said.  "Is everything OK?"

Daniel hesitated and then tears spilled out of his eyes.  "I... I just don't have as much of an appetite since Mary died.  You knew that Mary died in March?"  I had known, but I hadn't remembered it when I came into the room.  Now I did.

"I'm sorry," I said.  "I'm sure you're missing her terribly.  How are you dealing with Mary's death?"

"It's hard.  I miss her so much.  I was doing something last night and I realized it was time for us to go to bed and I started to say: 'Mary, let's go to bed,'  when it hit me that she wasn't there.  That seems to happen a lot."

These are the sort of conversations that medical school doesn't prepare you for.  What do you say to a man who has lost the love of his life -- someone he had shared everything with for the past fifty years?

Everything sounds trite and hollow. 

"She's in a better place." 

"You'll see her again some day." 

"Time will heal your wounds."

While these words may be true, they don't meet the need of the moment.  I don't know what such a loss is like, I can only imagine.  "Daniel," I said.  "I don't think there's anything that can fill the hole in your life, or take away your grief.  Time may make the wounds less fresh, but sometimes there will be things that remind you of her and bring it all back to you.  That's also an indication of how much you loved each other."

I asked him if it was OK if we prayed together and he said yes.  That's what we did.

I am no grief counselor, but it seems to me that the most import thing to do in this situation is to acknowledge the reality of the loss and the depth of the grief.  Maybe for a moment we can share in someone else's sorrow, even if we don't totally understand.

I know that burdens which cannot be borne alone can be shouldered together. 

In the darkest situations, only Jesus can shine a light that will pierce the darkness.