I’ve known it intellectually, but now I’m living the reality.
Grieving means living with paradoxes, struggling with conflicting emotions and desires!
I’m less than a month away from Linda’s death. The grief is raw, the sense of loss intense. Here are some of my lived paradoxes:
- relief that she’s at peace and regret that she is gone;
- desire to engage others and preference for being alone;
- wanting to remember and trying to forget;
- confidence that I loved her well and guilt that I fell short;
- quietness as solace and silence as a void;
- aloneness as solitude and aloneness as loneliness;
- clinging to God’s presence while feeling God’s absence.
A friend reminded me, “You can’t go around grief. You have to go through it!” I can’t remove the paradoxes. I just have to live them.
God, grant me the patience necessary for living with and through grief’s paradoxes!