Finding Hope
March 12th, 2010
The title of Howe-Peterson’s grief support series has always been “Journey Through Grief.” But when I think about most journeys, they are something we plan for and anticipate. Something where we know what will take place—and we know that we will return home afterwards. They are not forced upon us, as this journey of grief is.
On this journey there are a lot of mountains to climb and many valleys to cross. In those valleys, we try to deal with the obstacles in our path, but we don’t always know where we are going, how we got there, or even what the journey will be like. But as Vaclav Havel said, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.“
Just as the longest journey begins with a single step, so we day by day make our way upon the path before us—we do not have to comprehend or accomplish it all at once, but focus on this portion of the road for today. If we remember that, it makes the journey more manageable.
When we began this journey, we may not have been prepared or adequately packed, but it helps to know that there are places along the way where we might stop and rest, oases where we might take comfort in the midst of dry and barren wastelands, places of light amid the darkness. These are places you recognize because you have been there before.
To have the memory of Christmases past, of times shared—these can be very painful, but by the same token, what would our lives be like if those memories were erased? Would anyone trade the loss of those precious times for the numbness of never having loved at all? We would then have nothing to recall, nothing in our treasury of memories, and nothing to give our lives purpose. Memory is the storehouse containing what we need to provide us for the next day of our journey.
You are not alone because there are others who are also grieving. These other mourners are your own family or circle of friends, and each has his or her own treasury of memories which can aid you on the journey. They are also a means of support as you travel your journey, for they also journey with you. Though you feel as though you are alone with your grief and that the world has shut you out, it is not so. Together, you have more reason to hope, more memories to share, and the connection with others who also shared in loving that person.
Our life after loss will not be the same as our life before. We may complete our journey only to find that, rather than returning home, we have arrived at a different destination from where we started out, finding a wholeness we had not experienced before. And when we reach our destination, don’t be surprised if, like the man in the “Footprints” story, we find that we have not made the journey alone, but were in fact carried in some places.
You may now be experiencing the worst moments of your life, and yet I assure you that this is not the final scene nor the conclusion of the story. What endures beyond loss is memory. You will never forget that person. What endures beyond loss is love. The love you had for that person will never be taken away. For memory and love are stronger even than death. We take one day of the journey at a time. We seek meaning and purpose where we can find it.
Do not forget to take advantage of the laughter of children, the lights of the season, the company of friends, and the love of family as gifts and sustenance for the journey. We cannot predict how long the passage will last, but I can assure you that we shall arrive, and that the meaning of the journey will be clear to us when we finally rest.
Condensed from the talk Dr. William Hale gave at our Holiday Memorial. Dr. Hale is chaplain at Canterbury-on-the-Lake in Waterford MI, and co-pastor of the Down River Episcopal Area Ministry (DREAM)
