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familiarity and the love you felt. It is real but the sense of being cheated will not go away. There is loss, frustration, and utter helplessness.
At times you feel like a child and long for a hug or a cuddle. But then men in particular are not expected to need such things and so are not comforted. No one knows how to help, for men and boys are expected to be controlled, and are praised for being stiff upper-lipped in bereavement. Friends cannot cope with a man's tears. It is after a loss that you suddenly look round and realise that all your friends are couples and they still have each other to go home with. |
Maybe there are children in the house. Who thinks about them? How do they feel? Their loss is different from yours. For them it is so hard to trust again. Will you go away and leave them too. Clinginess is quite understandable.
So many emotions will tumble one upon another - fear, loneliness, guilt, emptiness, anger, bitterness. Eventually the day of the funeral comes. So many people are around and you want to grieve alone. You are forced to talk about the loss. But it is a comfort to read the cards on the flowers or the messages that are sent. But why does it have to be sunny - surely it should have been grey or wet? This is the day that you have been dreading - and then the hearse arrives at the house. Your loved one is in a coffin in a black vehicle, outside in the road. There are the flowers you chose. There are the neighbours discreetly watching, waiting for you to emerge from the house to see how you are bearing up. This is the day when you have decided you must not cry. From somewhere in the house behind you is a cry of anguish, ‘They’ve brought Daddy!’ but you are alone with your own thoughts. Out the corner of your eye you see the brother of your spouse, the very image of the one you have lost. Oh how it hurts and bewilders the heart! |
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Suddenly you are home again. It is all over. The visitors have gone, and your memory is of those curtains that closed over the coffin, or the side of the grave with its strange artificial grass, and afterwards just a mound of fresh earth. Gone! Gone never to come back!
What is the best thing you can do - for the moment just cry, let the tears flow. It may be as you read these words that the tears that have been swallowed down and held back stoically, maybe even for years, suddenly begin to come. Let them come; it is the most natural thing in the world, and also the most healthy. |
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| You will not lose control. Grieving is not an illness; it is a time of sadness and you can allow yourself to be sad or angry. When Jesus lost His friend Lazarus, He wept too. This same Jesus says, ‘Be of good comfort. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ |
| He knows the feelings of the heart as no other human being knows, and you can rest in His arms and allow Him to bring you strength and guidance and love. He accepts you just as you are with no expectations of bravery and control. Just talk out loud to Him about every detail of how you are feeling. Talk about your loss and resentment, about your anger, and your emptiness. |
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| 'Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.’ |
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