Grieving With the DisciplesRead Time 9 min

I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. It was a heavy word, grief. It shifted around. It didn’t stay put on my shoulders where I could control it. It wobbled around causing me to reassess how I carried it. Sometimes it would go away while I slept but when morning came, and I got my wits back online, I was reminded why I had this low-level yuck in my heart. Grief. It crawled back into my day and wiggled around unpleasantly.

I thought if I ignored it, it would leave me alone, but it found other ways to bother me. I decided to embrace it, so I went to Eucharistic adoration mentally prepared for the inundation of it. This is the time, I thought, in the safety of Jesus’ presence, where I could let the feelings roam freely. But grief was slippery, and the feelings stayed put. They lay low just beneath the surface causing my eyes to tear up unexpectedly at unfortunate moments.

When my friend received a cancer diagnosis and died five months later, I experienced the grief of losing someone close for the first time. As I slogged my way through, I noticed that not only was I grieving his death but the death of the things that weren’t going to happen — big plans like trips to Africa and Ireland, and little plans like backyard cookouts. There was so much that was still supposed to happen in the friendship of him, his wife, me and my husband that won’t happen now.

My Catholic faith consoled me because I believed he was going to be with Jesus and that is where we are all hoping to go. In some ways I envied him because the world has gotten messed up and he got to go where all is good with God. I also believed that about three minutes after he gets there, he will be greeting the three of us because in heaven there is no time. I’m hoping that he is there with a big speaker blasting Toto’s “Africa,” the song we always played when we were together. For him I felt gladness. For his wife and children, siblings and mother, my husband and I who said goodbye to a dear friend, the load of sadness carried on.

Jesus carried my burden through this. He offered his lighter yoke. I relied on that promise because, unlike Atlas, I wasn’t able to shrug it off on my own. It didn’t slip past me that in this experience the Lord heaped grace on me. He strengthened the roots of my faith, so I was able to weather the imminent storm. The hatches were battened down in preparation, and the storm was a bad one, but I wasn’t alone. It’s been almost four years. Tears sometimes still well up unexpectedly, and I’m still not alone in this.

In this Easter season I think about the apostles saying goodbye not once but twice to the one they loved. First was the trauma of his torture and crucifixion. Witnessing this abuse to God’s Son, their friend, must have torn their hearts apart. While he rose three days later — surely a joyful and glorious experience — he later ascended into heaven, leaving them once again. With the benefit of time, we see why it had to be that way, but no doubt, they experienced grief.

Perhaps they grieved the loss of the future they thought they had in his companionship. After three years of togetherness, they would no longer experience his lessons or love the same way. I imagine Jesus was pretty amazing to be around and the disciples and Mary would miss his daily physical presence. No longer could they laugh together or see his face. Their faith had to grow in a new way, grow deeper roots so they could go out as he instructed. They had the grace of each other to lean on, but not the benefit of a Bible filled with his teachings. They were doing everything for the first time.

I don’t understand why God made the world the way he did. He didn’t have to bless us with beauty in trees, flowers, mountains and oceans. He didn’t have to give us animals. He could have created an ugly world, and we’d never know, but he chose to give us creative beauty that never gets worn. When death entered in, he allowed it to play out as it has, and while I don’t understand why my friend had to die or why parents lose their children, or husbands and wives lose each other, I have to believe that somehow it’s going to be OK. God’s ways are not mine and God’s ways are bigger. I’m foolish to think I know better because I’m operating in a teeny tiny slice of creation. God knows the whole story; I probably know one word.

I am thankful that even though he ascended, Jesus is still very much present guiding us through our lives, carrying the burdens we can’t manage alone and filling us with grace. I’m thankful that he was willing to endure a horrible death in order to defeat it for good, and I’m thankful the Catholic Church invites us into the season through penance, fasting and the Triduum. We will all face grief and, with Jesus’ assistance, wrestle it into place. Just as the disciples did 2,000 years ago, we will move forward, battered and better because our Lord is always with us.