The great inevitable in life is the experience of losing someone you have deeply loved. Sooner or later, this event enters our life. It is feared and dreaded by most because it is so final. When it suddenly or slowly becomes our reality, it brings with it intense pain and suffering. So much so that it has the potential to be utterly debilitating. The action that follows is our grieving.
Grieving can take on many forms. Crying, withdrawing, anger, resentment, and many more forms too numerous to mention. But what I have discovered in my life of grieving is that despite the utter sense of devastating personal loss, there can be a shining light of hope and comfort. It is that light and the comfort it brings that I want to share with my readers.
Years ago, I read a book entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor E. Frankl. As a psychiatrist thrust into the hell of Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II, Frankl found himself positioned in a unique moment in time for observation. He discovered that if a person can find meaning in the circumstances they are in, no matter how horrid, they can and will survive. Meaning provides a means to find that light beam of hope that comforts the grieving heart.
I began my “search for meaning” of the grief that grips my heart and mind with an interesting note that was recently posted on social media. I found this to be a good starting point in my search.
So, grief is really our love. The love we shared with the one whose death has instigated this grieving was the evidence that we loved and were loved. This is quite profound. I once watched a television show that was based on an extraordinarily busy emergency room in a large city. The head doctor was speaking to a patient who perceived the doctor’s underlying grieving. He wanted to help the doctor and in his thoughts, remove the grieving. Her response was epic.
She said, “I never want to escape my grieving because it is a constant reminder that I have deeply loved, and I have been deeply loved. No, I will never let my grieving go.”
Hearing that was very touching to me. I stopped the recording, back tracked, and replayed it repeatedly. It spoke to me, and added value and understanding to my own grieving. This led me to another statement of grief.
For me, I took issue with one part of this statement. For me, when I came to embrace my grief, like that doctor, it is a place I wanted to stay. Because now my grief no longer brought those negatives of withdrawal, anger, etc. Now my grief was that constant reminder of the treasure of loving and being loved by someone very special and important to me.
So how could I go about cementing the positives of grief into my soul? I was invited to the funeral of a young girl I did not know. I knew her mother, and other relatives. I attended the funeral and found a real treasure for perceiving my grief. The father of the deceased teenager spoke and as a preamble to his eulogy he said, “When someone dies, people say that they “passed away.” Where I come from however, people say that they “passed on” and I want to share with you what my daughter “passed on” to me!”
His statement struck a tender chord in my soul. It burrowed deep into my heart as this grieving father eloquently spoke of all the gifts his daughter gave him during their short life together. Following the funeral, I pondered this perspective for days. I began to realize that this was a critical component of embracing the blessing of grieving. I thought of the motto of Garden of Innocence, “If no one grieves, no one will remember.” I realized that focusing on what my dear one passed on to me I had a bridge for keeping them alive in my memory. Never forgotten, they continued to give me what they so graciously bestowed upon me in life.
Further consideration of this “passing on” vision brought the thought that “passing away” implies that our loved one was moving away from us, farther and farther away each day. But “passing on” implies a continuation of their presence in my life, a living relationship as I named the gifts they gave me. This evoked a sense of comfort amid my grief.
Grieving was not a constant feeling I discovered. Rather it was like the ocean, it came in waves. And the intensity varied, triggered by special moments and events in history. A birthday, an anniversary, a graduation, a marriage along with many other moments triggered the sense of loss. Like waves at the beach, if you are not looking for them they will knock you off your feet, tumble you under the water and fill your pants with sand. If you have ever experienced that you’ll know how miserable it can make you. So, what are we to do? There is a solution that I have found that works for me. I call it “Prism Vision”.
Simply put, prism vision is looking at circumstances in life through a prism that, under your control determines what you see. When I found myself unprepared for the waves of grief, I chose to peer through the prism of “Collateral Beauty”. “How does that work?” you ask?
A prism has the characteristic of taking white, invisible light and, as it passes through the prism, breaks it up into all its component colors. In other words, it reveals what hereto for was hidden, invisible. So when I used the prism of collateral beauty, in the sudden onslaught of unexpected intense grief, it revealed the hidden beauty of the relationship I enjoyed with the one who passed on.
Allow me to give an example too illustrate just how this works.
I was drowned in work and activities during an extraordinarily busy week. The many things and events that filled my week consumed my undivided attention. I had little time to think of anything else but what was on my plate that week. Sunday arrived and my wife and I headed off to church. When I arrived, I looked at my phone to turn it off and suddenly realized it was the anniversary of the passing on of a very special friend, one who means so much to me. A tidal wave of grief crashed over me. I fought to hold back tears as deep feelings squeezed my inner parts and a huge lump found its way into my throat evoking pain. I felt empty with every part of me aching.
Then I peered through my collateral beauty prism and bigger waves of remembered special moments shared with my friend loomed immense before me. So big were these visions that they overwhelmed the waves of sadness and pain. They buoyed me up and lifted my soul out of darkened depths. Immediately I decided on a course of action for that day. I wanted a quieter time to reflect, to connect with all the beautiful moments shared with my friend.
The sermon at church offered more triggers of the beauty of my connection with my friend. After I returned home, I put my plan into action. I went to the Garden of Innocence where abandoned babies are given a name and laid to rest. Some months prior, I had named a baby in honor of my friend. I thought, “What better place to go to meditate than in the beauty of this Garden and see how God would help me use my prism.”
I arrived at the cemetery early in the afternoon and proceeded to walk up the hill toward the Garden. The warmth of the sun blanketed my back on the journey upward. Birds sang their sweet melodies and a gentle breeze wafted through the trees. As I walked I found myself in deep thought wrapped in anticipation for what was to come. Again, my thoughts went to my friend who loved butterflies. At least one black and yellow butterfly almost always visited us in the Garden when we had a burial ceremony.
I wondered, “Wouldn’t it be nice if when I reach the Garden, I would find many butterflies flitting about? Surely my friend would be happy at such a sight.”
As I continued my walk, I thought again, “What would really be extraordinary to find a butterfly landing on the grave stone of the baby I named in honor of my dear friend!”
What were the chances, considering that butterflies rarely landed on the ground and there were over a hundred seventy grave stones in the Garden?
I arrived at the entry to the Garden of Innocence and my heart was overwhelmed as I was greeted by what must have been a couple dozen butterflies dancing in the air above gravestones. I was moved to start my phone and activate the camera. I pushed the movie button to catch the many butterflies that filled the air. To my utter surprise, as I panned around, my eye and camera caught a butterfly zoom in on the very gravestone of my special baby. As I walked filming this extraordinary moment I caught the butterfly sitting on the gravestone slowly opening and closing its wings. After a few moments it lifted off and continued to fly around the Garden.
I was overwhelmed with joy and thanked God for giving me such a glimpse of collateral beauty with my precious friend. The pain of grief melted away as I basked in the joy of the moments that followed. This profound connection with my loved one continued to bring joy and comfort to my soul.
It is my hope that sharing these thoughts will help my readers suffering from grief and loss to find their own prisms to reveal the hidden collateral beauty they share with those who have passed on.
NOTE: The video of the butterfly landing on the gravestone can be viewed using this link: http://www.dropbox.com/s/3imdicpiepafazd/20160807_220021_66160173695203.mp4?dl=0
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