Coping with Grief

The death of a loved one leads us down a long winding path of many ups and downs as we deal with the grief from our loss.  As the days pass, we continue to mourn the loss of our loved ones in as many different ways as there are people, but just know that its normal and healthy for us to feel the pangs of that grief.  What we feel may be very difficult from another family member or close friend dealing with the same loss.  We must remember that the stages of grief that we travel are all part of the healing process.

For us, one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with the shock of the death of Stephen was moving past his final act and moving forward with our own lives.  It is easy to get lost in our own thoughts of how much it hurts and the feeling of helplessness we experience when we realize that our loved one is gone.  We knew that it would be easy for us to continue in our initial shock and focus on why he took his life, trying to understand what got him to this point.  Its natural and normal for a parent to try to put ourselves in their shoes and be empathetic to the path they went down to get to their point of despair.  We somehow want to connect with them to try to understand why.

Even in my attempts here to chronicle our journey through the preceding months, it has been a temptation to allow myself to re-live as it were, the days of extreme grief and step back into the mourning of our son Stephen.  But to do so could start the “shock” cycle over again and move from acceptance to denial once more.  It is for this reason that I have removed some articles I posted earlier.  We must move forward with our grief and let the process of healing begin.   

I remember as a young child, I was out in our yard at home and was playing when I accidentally allowed my hand to pull across the top of a cyclone fence surrounding our house.  It had the top twisted wires of the fence exposed instead of bending them back as we see with cyclone fences today.  I felt something and looked down and there was a big gash in the palm of my left hand with blood streaming down my hand and arm.  It required an emergency visit to the doctor where I received six stitches to repair the damage.  As I look at my hand now, about fifty-five years later, I still can see the scar and can see where the stitches were.  During the healing process of the deep cut, I remember how itchy it was and even though I knew not to scratch at it, the temptation to scratch it was overwhelming at times and I would scratch through the bandage.  It gave momentary relief, but afterwards it would throb for awhile.  Even after the bandages came off and the stitches were removed, I still had a tendency to pick at the cut, which would result in a little bleeding.  I had learned at that early age not to pick at the healing scar, else it could get infected and the healing process would start all over.

When we lose a loved one to suicide, its easy to let ourselves pick at the wound in our heart, and re-open it, by dwelling on the question of why and how could they have done this.  When we do that, we just open up our thoughts and emotions to allow the pain to seep back into our lives and we have taken a step backwards in our healing process by allowing the different stages of grief to consume our thoughts.  Healing of any wound requires time for it to heal as well as continuing to treat the wound, by keeping it clean, and protecting it from injury.

Our hearts are no different.  We must bandage the wounds of our hearts and keep it clean, by accepting the loss of our loved one and not continually picking at the wound.  Accepting the death of our loved one is not just a one time act.  Its something that we must work at daily and allow our hearts to heal.  With a loss such as suicide, the grim realities of what drove them to this act can overwhelm us if we allow it to.  For the sake of all of us who remain, we must move forward.

Grief and mourning is normal and is part of the process of losing any loved one.  But we must not let that grief and mourning consume our lives.  We must dwell on good and happy memories of our loved one that do honor to them.  

As believers, Kim and I lean on God’s Word as part of our healing process. For us its part of our daily cleaning of the “wound in our heart” that the death of Stephen created.  A scripture passage that I remember my mom reading to me many times over in my life when I would become consumed with thoughts that overwhelmed me.  This passage was and is one that I turn to frequently and it is part of my own healing process.  The entire chapter 4 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one that I have read many times over the the past few months.  But especially Philippians 4:8 (KJV), “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”