Intense grieving did not begin immediately. 

I wasn’t being phony, but shock and the Holy Spirit gave me an appearance of dealing seemingly well with the loss in the immediate aftermath. I remember thinking God would be faithful to get us through this. And He has been, but I had no idea what He was asking us to endure when I was initially determined to rely on Him. I had never experienced anything like this. 

It was about to get worse than I could imagine.

The graphic nature of raw and honest misery could be rated M for Mature. But then, who really ever reaches a level of maturity at which they are ready to experience the pain of grief?  

When Nicholas died, my heart was stabbed over and over until I passed out from the physical pain, only to be awakened to realize that this was not a dream. It wasn’t even a nightmare. It was a horrifying scream. The scream echoed in my ears until I felt like I was going mad. The stabbing pain was a welcome comfort compared to the scream. How could I dull the screeching magnitude of its volume? What could I do to numb the pain? At best, I could drown it out for brief moments, while it continued behind the closed door. 

But the scream beckoned to be heard. It refused to stay shut out, relentless in its pursuit. I felt like I was in hell physically, mentally, and spiritually -like God was far from me and had left me alone in separation. I did not even have the strength or wherewithal to ask, “Why God?”  

I cried out until there were no more tears to cry, leaving me in heaving sobs of confusion and bewilderment and begging for relief.

This went on for the better part of the first year. Merely existing between moments of terror is basically what I did.  Just performing the perfunctory daily activities was how I got by. The pain of grief was so intense at times, I did not think I could bear it. 

It was a miserable existence. 

And then it would eventually break, and some relief would come. And the times of terror would lessen. 

I chose to live.

Sometime in the second to third year, I wavered between merely existing to wanting to live again. 

I either needed to die or live. And if I was going to choose to live, then I needed to really live, not just exist. 

If grief was linear, I would have been able to rejoice in relief. I had made it through. 

However, I soon discovered grief is not something I could get through to the other side. 

I could not finish one phase and move on to the next, never to revisit the previous depths of hellish anguish again. 

It has been more like overlapping cycles that loop back on itself, and eventually progress forward. The cycles can repeat, not necessarily every phase or in the same order, but with a similar familiarity. 

Ten years later…

It has been ten years now. A little over a year ago, the dark heavy cloud lifted. Before this, I could not count on sustained relief. I keep waiting for the foreboding sense of despair to return, but so far, it hasn’t. 

“The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” 
Isaiah 40:28, 29 ESV