I’ve wanted to share, but have been lacking the words to say. Often I process through writing, and the following is an excerpt from my journal…

It seems all I can do for the time being is function. I feel numb most of the time – as though I’m in a daze. Sorrow and Grief come and go – sometimes quickly and sometimes lingering. Largely these two things make up my ‘feelings’ – when I am able to escape the encompassing numbness, able to feel anything at all.

I grieve for what is – the loss of someone dear to this life. Even more I grieve as I see my wife experience the loss of her father – her hero. 

We don’t grieve for Rich or for the future. We know he is with God, at peace, free from disease and sickness. We know we will be together again one day, when God makes the wrongs right and renews all things. I hold onto this hope of a new creation, new bodies, new heavens, new earth – all things new. 

But we grieve the now – the harshness of disease, the uncertainty caused by his absence, the inability to simply acclimate to the new reality of missing his presence – his wry jokes, encompassing arms, and raspy laugh. 

A feeling of heaviness surrounds us. It is unseen. The weight of the loss of (Rich’s) presence is nearly indescribable, but its experience is inescapable. The pangs of death resonate around our thoughts as we remember our loved one. 

Yet at the same time hope sounds out in our ears as we know this bitter present is not a forever reality. Hope beckons to us – wanting to break through into the current mire of sorrow. This future hope breaks in and holds the present sadness.

If I could put words to anything, anything at all, it is that in this time I feel held. In the midst of pain and death and loss and grief I feel held by the one who holds all things together, by the One who is the Resurrection and the Life. And at this point – this held-ness is what I need. It is my prayer for our family.