Grieving from afar
- Scott Simpson
- Mar 31, 2024
- 4 min read
I'm going to start today with a few notes. First, this post is fully and completely emotionally driven. Usually I tend to lean away from pure emotion when I am writing but this time I am leaning fully into it and working through my emotions as I write, and I'm not going to apologize for that. Secondly, the catalyst for this post involves an amazing family, and community going through a horrific time. After you read this please take a few minutes and pray for them all. I will not be posting names or photos of the young lady until I reach out to them for permission and I don't believe it to be appropriate at this time, however God knows their grief and will intercede. |
This week was a good week. School, for me, was finally coming together as I seemingly successfully implemented my new routine for this quarter, after wrapping up a blitz week course. The family as a whole seemed fully settled into their new surroundings, as we began seeing the first signs of a true spring including some snowmelt and birds singing. Even a second round of major car troubles didn't seem to upset the mood, and gave the opportunity to once again feel the support of our brand new community.
Friday evening was especially good, as we were able to gather with a large number of our college family, as they are quickly becoming, and have become, more than mere classmates. It was a fun, albeit ridiculously laughable series of events that transpired. It was not until we gave our goodbyes and a round or hug or two and were well into our journey back into the hills to our cabin in the woods that we all began receiving the hammer of news from back in our home state. Word came first to the boys through their core friend groups that they had lost their friend in an ATV accident and then to us by parents and friends in the community.
Few details, just that.
There are no words to describe the wall you run into in the early seconds and minutes of news like this. It’s shock. An absence of thought. Silence. Complete non-comprehension. A stopping of time. And then, the wave hits you. Pain, denial, questions, concern…. All jumbled and so intertwined it takes another time of times to formulate them into some semblance of order in your own mind as time rushes to catch up to the empty minutes.
This is where the divergence begins. As each person begins the processing of the wave, we diverge. Some rush to comfort or to be comforted. Some need answers to what, how, and when. Some long to slip away for some solitude and reflection.
In our car and home I witnessed this in a new form. We were grieving from afar, with little ability to have questions answered or to comfort those not in the room or to sneak away for solitude. But each found their own way.
The next morning the observations of how each was processing was more obvious, as I took Drake to the grocery store for no particular shopping list, rather an excuse to get out and talk. He being the most directly affected with her being in his closest circle, or at least attached to it. His deep concern for his friends he knew were struggling bursting from his soul, with now way to physically reach out to them was crushing. His grief is very different from mine. You see I had no personal relationship with this young girl, he did. I have no idea how she lived her daily life, her sense of humor, her likes or dislikes in music or food. Drake grieves for HER, The loss and separation, and he grieves for his friends who he knows in many ways have a grief greater than his. I grieve as a friend, a member of the community and a father.
As a friend I grieve for her. The light and warmth she brought to my family through my children. As a community member I grieve for those, especially the young, that knew her so well and truly feel the loss and separation this leaves. But as a father…. As a father, I grieve for far more. I grieve for my children and the wounds open, but possibly more than that I grieve for her parents.
It is unfathomable. Truly. It's a word that has lost meaning in today's morphology of language, but I can not honestly say to myself or anyone else if I were in this family's shoes what I would say. Or possibly more importantly what would my actions say? I can tell you however, what the mother of this amazing young lady, who in our view, was taken far to soon from our community said the following morning.
“Last night was one of the hardest and I know it won’t be the last. Thank you for all the prayers. We will definitely need more of them. The devil is definitely at work! She died while we celebrated Jesus' death for our sins! I will NOT honor the devil during this trial but I will still praise the Lord through this! Our baby girl definitely has served her purpose here on earth. Watching the sunrise this morning, where Madeline went to be with the Lord, forever a sacred place!”
Read it again. Read it again and let the power of the words written by a mother forced to fathom the unfathomable wash over you.
Would I be there? Watching the sun rise in the very spot my worldly foundations cracked? Would I be strong enough to know, not think but KNOW that this life is merely a stepping stone to eternity? This strength and these words do not ease my grief, but does allow me to shift my thoughts to those that are not as able to articulate their thoughts, or even understand their emotions in a time like this.
It's the young people that more often find themselves unable to mitigate these emotional peaks and valleys. As adults we struggle with this, but tend to have a wider range of experience to draw on(not to mention the hormonal imbalances of development). This more than anything else is what drove me into the process of entering the ministry field of counseling. The need to stand in the gap, and help them verbalize and navigate the thought process and find the piece that is only possible through love and understanding. So that when during the unfathomable, they too can find the power and peace in the words of this mother.
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