Reflecting on a Year of Loss

During our lifetime, we will experience loss.  A season of loss can take on many forms and faces.  Loss is simply being deprived of something or someone.  This deprivation can cause us to respond in many ways emotionally:  with anger, frustration, sadness, fear, emptiness, irritation, loneliness, grief, shock and disbelief.  Whether we are being deprived of people or of things, we still have a process to go through to reclaim our place of joy.  But, joy is possible.

In the last fourteen months, loss has arrived at my doorstep in many different shapes.  Some were easily recognized and others disguised in such a way that it took some time to really understand what had shown up.  As I reflect back, I am surprised by how invasive this season has been and unbeknownst to me, I am just now recognizing all the visits for what they really were.

It started with a trip to see my husband’s sweet, 97 year old grandmother.  Her physical health had been declining for some time as her aged body was just too tired.  Her mind, however, was sharp as ever.  We enjoyed visiting, singing, praying and enjoying our time with her.  She reminded us every chance she got that we were dearly loved and special to her.  As a granddaughter by marriage, I had the privilege of having Grandma Raber for more than 22 years.  She so sweetly hugged me and told me that I was hers.  She was emphatic that I understood that.  It was a sweet and precious time as she waited for Jesus to “come get her.”  She just could not understand why He was waiting so long, as she was ready.  She told us, “He already has my heart, now He just needs to come get the rest of me.”  That He did on a Tuesday morning.  We had been given the opportunity to say goodbye and prepare our hearts for her to leave us.  What a gift that was, but a deprivation all the same.

The next experience was much more disguised.  It came slowly, creeping in throughout the year; quietly advancing each step to take the next piece, followed by the next, until it was gone.  My daily routine of parenting had been full throttle for 25 years.  Steadily, the days were departing, right before my eyes, with the list of lasts lining up one by one.  I had always known that it would come to this.  We are only given a brief window of 18 years for each child.  There had been days when it seemed to go on forever, but that is a myth, a delusion, even a lie.  The last registration forms to ever fill out, the last trip to drop a forgotten item off at school, the last home wrestling meet, the last absence to excuse, the last parent conference, the last weather check to see if school is cancelled, the last sports banquet, the last high school graduation, all these “lasts” ushered in the end of my daily routines as I had known them ALL of my adult life.  Slowly and steadily deprivation was setting in.

Another loss was less personal but felt deeply for a friend.  She was all of thirty-two years old, enjoying her brand new baby of three weeks and her energetic three year old.  Within three days, she went from the joyous, new family of four to a widow with two very small children.  Heart-breaking!  He was not feeling well.  They could not figure out what was wrong. They sent him to the hospital for more tests.  They thought he was almost ready to go home.  Go home he did.  Just not to his wife and boys.  Oh the loss I felt for my friend and her boys!  What can you do about this deprivation?

This was followed by the emptying of my nest.  Everyone descended home for the summer, my house was bustling and full.  Activity, food, singing, shenanigans, new routines, and ramped up energy surround and disguise what is coming.  Almost methodically, they begin to depart.  One by one, my girl goes first, and then my baby boy.  This is followed by my younger girl and then their cousin who has resided with us for the last year and a half.  Gone!  Bustling leads to a take your breath away quiet.  One moment you are deprived of quiet, but the next, deprived of what has always been.

There was no time to fully process this current reality as the phone rings.  Grandpa was with us no more.  What?  He made it through the surgery that they did not think was possible.  He gained strength and made it to the nursing home for recovery.  He had been so lively and engaging with all the family that afternoon.  He may have been 89 years old, but we were still being deprived of the fun-loving man and “character” we deeply loved.

There was a short breather as I took time to process all this change.  It was time to engage this new life before me.  Took a trip, painted some rooms, started a new Bible study, soaked in this new space and quiet.  Celebrated with a few weddings and prepared for the holidays when that bustling arrived again.  But deep inside, another new reality emerged.  I have been watching grandma’s mind fade.  It has been a slow progression over several years, but seemed to escalate the past few months.  The changes were showing.  After a short reading on the joy of signatures, how we can recognize and cherish the hand written note, I broke.  The reality sunk in.  There would be no more cards; not for Valentine’s Day, not for Easter, not for Christmas, and not for birthdays.  Deprivation of a new kind had arrived.  My heart broke again!

As I tried to console myself with this new reality, more news came; a down turn in my uncles fight against liver disease.  He was airlifted to a larger hospital four hours away.  They would do what they could to stabilize him and wait to see his number.  He was waiting for the magic number, a meld score that would move him to the top of the transplant list.  This process is a crazy combination of being sick enough to merit climbing to the top of the donor list and healthy enough to actually make the operation a success.  As days passed, a new challenge arose; a double lung infection.  This proved to be a double whammy!  The only drugs to help have to be purged by the liver (a liver that is not working) AND this infection suspended him from the transplant list (too sick to receive a liver).  It was only be a matter of time, a very short time.  My dad, brother and I went to support my aunt and cousins through this painful process.  Five little grandsons lost a Poppy.  Four daughters lost their Daddy.  A wife lost her lover and friend.  Deprived!

This was loss.  This was deprivation at its utmost.  This was a season.  This was a journey.  But, healing will come.  New normals will settle in.  Joy will replace sorrow.  It is said, “Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5b HCSB)  May we seek morning, as the sun rises on a new day full of His mercy and new beginnings.  Joys of a new kind will replace the joys of before.  Slowly, we will move on, treasuring the joys that each of these losses represent.  We will only be deprived of that joy if we fail to remember.  May we remember, and greet each new morning to claim our joy.