Grief, I’ve discovered is a lot like time travel.

It transports you to places in your heart and mind you don’t want to visit at the most inappropriate times. It can be an obnoxious intruder and proves to be the boss of our emotions, especially it seems, in public places.

It could be a sound, smell or person and BAM– it immediately transports you to a specific moment and you end up doing the snot slinging cry fest in front of strangers.

I was so thankful I was alone in my van the other morning when I was taken back in time.

One minute I’m smiling and bopping to Christmas music, then a lady comes on the radio, sharing her story of losing her loved one to terminal illness during the holidays.

I turn my joy down, come home, sit in my robe, remembering last year as dad was battling cancer during what was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Talk about a paradox of emotions.

I was devastated, erratic, while simultaneously, full of peace and hope. One minute I’m trying to shop, and put up a tree and the next, picking up more pain medication at the pharmacy because his pain was becoming unbearable.

So, this year if grief is part of your equation as the holidays approach, I’m thinking of you, wherever you are, going through it. The ups and downs, feeling like you’re on the crazy train and just want to get off and go back to life as usual.

I’m thinking of you care givers, (which btw you are officially now my heroes) walking with your loved one through terminal or chronic illness and you are grieving at what is to come and what already feels taken from you. (And yeah the last thing you want to think of is making a turkey or stringing lights on a tree.)

I’m thinking of you, who have also lost loved ones and are missing them horribly.

I’m thinking of you who may be grieving a marriage, job or relationship.

One of the things that encouraged me so much was when my aunt would call me and say, “You’re doing a good job.” She had no idea what those words meant to me, because 99.9% of the time I did not feel it was so, but my ears and heart still needed to hear it. So, friend can I speak that to your heart?

You’re doing a good job. You are strong. You are still putting one foot in front of the other, when you’d rather curl up in bed and never climb out. Keep going. God has you. He will not fail you, He has not forgotten you. 

As I reflect back on the last year there was a gift which God gave to us as a family that helped carry us through. That brought joy in the middle of the sorrow and devastation: Gratitude.

I never knew devastation and gratitude could coincide until last year. That God gives us this ability to see through the pain, to what He has given and is still giving.

Hold onto your faith, hope, love and gratitude friend. This isn’t some Pollyanna thing. Nor, is it an easy thing, but, if we practice it, it can be a life altering thing.

Our gratitude lifts us up while we grieve and gives us perspective, it shows us the gifts and beauty in the middle of the murky debilitating times in life.

I was amazed when dad would wake up feeling good, he would do a little dance in the kitchen as he happily made himself breakfast. He still found room in his heart, despite the fear and sadness, for joy, laughter and thankfulness.

Tomorrow is our family’s first Thanksgiving without our father. We will be missing so many things about him. There will be an ache and a void in our hearts, which I know we will carry into every holiday.

And tomorrow many of you will be feeling those same feelings.

 May we cry when we need to. May we remember. May we share memories with our loved ones. May we grieve as needed when transported back into time.

But may we also find room in our hearts for laughter, joy, and hope.

Taking our gratitude with us.

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(image source: canstockphoto.com)

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