Some years ago a friend of mine told a story of one of the congregants in her church where she served as pastor. The congregant was a woman who had recently lost her husband. My friend, her pastor, went to visit and see how she was doing. The woman said she was doing okay, but sometimes had "green bean moments." Curious, my friend asked what that meant. The woman replied, "I'll think I am doing okay, and then something very ordinary happens, like opening a can of green beans, and the memories flood back in."
Grief is a tricky thing. It comes in surges. Just when we think we are going to make it through the day, that we have healed, that we have taken necessary steps forward, we may find ourselves in our own green bean moments.
A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a really uncomfortable moment of grief that was unexpected. For me, this was related to the loss something I loved rather than someone I loved, but it still stung. I found myself unable to even look up from my seat. I felt ashamed and hurt and sad and embarrassed. If I could have escaped gracefully, I surely would have done so. Green Bean Moment, in a big room full of people - but to move would have meant to cry - and if I had started to cry I don't think I would have been able to stop. So, I looked at my lap and focused on just breathing through the GBM.
And today, I felt another GBM. My dad's birthday was today, but unfortunately he passed away in 2016. I miss him. I wish grief wasn't so long, so hard, and so unexpected. Jamie Anderson said, “Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in the hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
Andrew Garfield, in an interview with Stephen Colbert, expressed a similar thread on grief after losing his mother. (Watch the entire clip here; his comments on grief start approximately 4:21) Garfield says, "This is all the unexpressed love, the grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other... I hope this grief stays with me because it is all the unexpressed love I didn't get to tell her, and I told her every day, we all did... she was the best of us."
What are you grieving today? What recent GBM has struck your heart and drawn your tears? Where have you hung your head or made yourself small while trying to get through that moment?
Whatever it is that is breaking your heart today - even those unexpected interruptions we were least expecting - may you find solace for your sorrow today. And if you need a friend - let me know.
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