walking barefooted on the rocky pathways of grief...

We gathered on the side of the mountain, overlooking Deweese and Elsie’s home, in the Wolfe family cemetery. The mountains close gathered in, held us in their strong ageless embrace as we laid Elsie to rest yesterday. The men from the Boys Club had dug her grave in the hard rocky soil next to the grave of their son who died young from cancer. The flag draped coffin honored Elsie’s service in the Air Force and old Cherokee men in their uniforms stood at attention as the military service began. As the final prayer was offered, the guns were lifted and a volley of shots rang out over the mountains. The long slow plaintive notes of the final call, Taps, floated up to the sky and we wept.
Ida, a work camp friend, and I went to speak with Deweese as the family sat under the tent waiting for Elsie’s grave to be filled in. I knelt down, looked in his sad face, tears easing down through the new wrinkles of grief, hands holding the folded flag, and my tears joined his. I held his hands, told him I remembered how it felt to be sitting holding a flag as you leave the body of the one you love to the tender mercies of the ground. "Your heart is broken. You will miss her forever. Your love for each other will never die. I am so sorry." What else can one say in the face of such grief? Time enough later to consider the larger questions of faith and life after death. All that is needed from me is the recognition of the enormity of the loss, the absence of a loving presence, the new hole in the soul. God alone has what is needed to lead Elsie’s family through this new life without her.
Those of us who love those who are living with grief are the faces and arms of God but we are not God. The answers we have forged in our own fiery furnaces of despair and loss are ours and may not be what is needed for these who are facing new grief. The temptation is to reassure, to soothe, to try to fix the unfixable out of love. The face of grief is an uncomfortable reminder of the thin edge on which we all live. Our illusions of being the choreographers of our lives are stripped away as we face the deaths of those we love. All I can do is weep with Deweese, honor the importance of Elsie’s life by my presence at her graveside, and continue to be a friend who shows up as life flows on.
The season of grief continues. Mary Etta died early Monday morning. Leslie’s son is dying at her home. Andy’s absence in our church family is felt keenly when we gather to worship. Aunt Peg struggles to find her footing as her sons have to return to work.
I turn to the trilogy of Psalms 22, 23 and 24, reading ancient words of despair, assurance and joy. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?... The Lord is my shepherd...The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof." These familiar old words remind me that we are not the first to feel so alone, standing on the edge of life weeping for all that has been lost. I am also reminded of the journey that is to come, a journey that takes us from loss to new life, a new life that is grounded in God’s continued loving presence in our world. Like the Psalmist, I can sing, "I believe that I shall see goodness in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your hearts take courage; yea, wait for the Lord!"
I am waiting with Deweese and Mary and Trina and Leslie and Aunt Peg and all others who walk barefooted on the rocky pathway of grief... waiting for the Lord and taking heart in the hope that we all shall see goodness in the land of the living once again. May it be so, Lord.