Grief is a strange thing, it affects people differently, but it's always real.
I was 11 when my dear Aunty Val died 17 years ago today. I remember coming home from school and my dad told me. I was heartbroken. I remember going round the corner to my friend Sarah's house and ate chocolate sauce out of the bottle, while I cried. I remember walking to Girl's Brigade at church; I remember Marion talking to me and telling me it would be ok. Those memories are with me like they happened yesterday.
The following year both my nan and one of my closest friends died suddenly. Again the memory of being told and the hours that followed are etched on my mind.
If I'm honest, those three deaths particularly changed me. They were a lot to deal with as an 11/12 year old. The shock, hurt and pain I felt went some way in to shaping me in to who I have become today.
I would love to write to say that every day I think about my Aunty, and others whom I have loved and lost. That wouldn't be entirely true. I am reminded of a poem by Christina Rossetti which says 'Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave, A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile, Than that you should remember and be sad.' However I do think of them often. As my daughter grows up I am sad that significant people in my family are not here to share in that joy with us. As I grow up I am aware that my friend will be forever 12 and never got to reach the milestones that I have reached and continue to reach.
One of the worst sayings ever (in my opinion) is 'time heals'. Yuk! Yes time might heal a broken arm or a cut leg, but I cannot believe that time ever completely heals a broken heart. For me time has made grief easier to deal with, but when I think of my loved ones the pain in my heart is fresh as the memories flood my mind. I miss them. It hurts. I guess that is one of the costs of loving.
I am blessed and honoured now to minister to people in their grief. Supporting a family as they prepare to bury a loved one is a real privilege. I have also been blessed to work with people who have suffered the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death. Every death is different. Every person's grief is different. No one can tell another how to grieve, or when they should feel better, or how they should cope. The circumstances of death and the relationship with the person changes how someone might grieve for them; and that's really ok. There shouldn't be some uniform way of handling grief.
When dedicating a baby loss memorial recently I used the line 'from love they came and to love they have returned'. In the book of Jeremiah we hear God saying 'before I formed you in the womb I knew you'. He loved each of us before we were even conceived. He loved us in to being. And at the point of death we return to his loving embrace. The good thing for us is that we get to love others while we are here on earth, although that does make it difficult when we have to say goodbye.
Lots of people don't believe in God or a life after this one, but I really hope that there is one. That way I can continue to picture my Aunty and all those I have loved and lost surrounded by the angels and archangels and the rest of the company of heaven.