I’ve been ignoring you — grappling not so much with processing grief — I continue to process grief daily. But rather, grappling to control how much grief a day must hold.

I do not take for granted how fortunate we are to have so many people who, more than two months after Jeremiah’s death, are still checking in on us. Lavishly loving us. Doing their best to make sure we continue to feel supported.

I’ve been puzzling over why I cannot open emails. Return text message. Avert mine eyes from DMs. Today, I took some time to meditate and think through it.

It boils down to control. And grief is like an unwanted guest in my day-to-day life. Unbidden. Unwanted. Relentless.

If we were at a party, grief is the guy no one invited and everyone dreads talking to. You do your best to avoid making eye contact and deliberately make any excuse to move out of grief’s orbit. Trauma and grief seem to be besties. As you process one, the other hangs out making awkward moments at inopportune times.

My instinct is to avoid grief. After all, it finds me several times a day no matter what I do. It wakes me in the middle of the night. It strikes in the shower. Innocent tasks like sorting clothing takes a grief-filled turn when Jeremiah’s shorts or his winter hats are unearthed unexpectedly. Missing him remains raw and it’s rarely just a sad few seconds. In those instances, I take a moment and pray or share, “Momma is really missing you today, Buddy.” I know he’s not here but I like to think the Lord passes along the message. I’m careful to allow myself to continue to mourn his loss.

So I’ve been ignoring you — exercising control in the only way I can because most days I’m not sure I want to invite grief into any additional moments of my day.

The Lord remains faithful to gently remind me I can’t and shouldn’t avoid grief for long. 

from Every Moment Holy, Volume II:

There are days I am okay, O Lord, and
other days I wake, and cannot bear to face 
what awaits; for there certain days 
that were once a source of warmth 
and celebration, of fellowship and life:

     birthdays,
     holidays,
     milestones,
     anniversaries.

those calendar squares – – once colored by 
the light of bright expectation – – now hold 
an inverse ache of their former delight.
Even as I am learning again to take the 
forward movement of daily life in stride,
sometimes these special days arrive, and 
jar me from my new-found rhythm. 

Past and present overlap; hearts and memory feel displaced in time.

As a shipwrecked sailor nearing land, swept 
again to sea by receding tides, I‘m suddenly 
pulled back to that first sadness.

Sometimes I feel too wearied, weighed down,
and weak to navigate another day so marked 
by loss, O God, so inside–out, so incomplete, 
so filled with the inescapable presence of an 
inescapable absence. O Christ, save me
from the pain of holidays and special days!

Save me from this pain – – or meet me in it,
and save me through it.

Either spare me this harsh echo of
heartache, O Lord, or shepherd me now
through the very living of it; through the
resurgent tears, the returning memories,
the reawakened weight of a day that once dawned so pregnant with joy.

Hold me close, O Christ, and show me your face even in this place of lingering
loss; even in this season that has become 
a receptacle of past sorrows.
Amidst my weeping, let sweeter memories
resurface, buoyed by deeper joys no sorrow
can suppress. Let me draw upon this day’s 
former delights, so that old happiness and 
heartbreak are laced and intertwined with new hope ,and fellowship, and beauty.

Lead me, O Lord, through this layered confusion of celebration and lament, 
of things present, and things past.
Let me make of this day a new thing.
Though holidays might be hard 
days, O God, by the movement of 
your mercies may they also become 
holy days, teaching me again and again
to entrust to you, my many griefs, 
as often as these unavoidable days uncover and reveal them.

For if I must endure their repetition – – and I know that I must – – then let the hurts tendered by this day’s arrival become as the annual planting of seeds of sorrow that – – tended by your Spirit, and watered by my tears – – would bloom into harvest of eternal hope.

Indeed, let me learn, year-by-year, O Lord, 
how this long pain might 
be transformed into the groanings 
of a faith actively yearning 
toward a glorious in certain resurrection.

And today, let me learn again how 
your grace will be always 
sufficient to my need; your comfort
sufficient my sorrow; your presence
sufficient to my loss.

Now lead me, carry me, and walk beside
me through this day, O Christ, shepherd 
of all my sorrows.

In unexpected places, let me find joy.