LOVE, LOSS, GRIEF, AND HOPE
Increasingly, I see my life as a cycle of love, loss, grief, and hope. Then repeat. It is not the fatalistic “I am stuck” kind but a generous and invitational kind that allows me to expand and grow as a human being. Ultimately, growing and maturing in perfect love is what God may be after.
Leaving a community of friends in Korea was sad and difficult this June, more than I admitted at the time. In recent years, we have rekindled love and deep life connections with them. There is mutual love and respect expressed through vulnerability, hospitality, and encouragement. It was a loss at the time which transitioned into grief. My natural tendency is not to dwell in the land of grief but to quickly trigger my mind to the next exciting and encouraging event in my life, which I did this time again. Sure enough, I had Hannah’s wedding on my mind, the first among our four adult children. Even then, I KNEW I did not grieve properly. I did not see it as a loss. I told myself that I would see them again, so I did not allow myself to fully experience loss and grief.
A week after we came back to the US, I went to a gathering of friends. I affectionately call them “anam cara," meaning soul friend in Celtic. These are friends I have known for close to 40 years. The friendship began when we were all attending the same church college group in Los Angeles. Some married within the group (including yours truly) while some married out and grafted their spouses into the gatherings over the years. I remember back in 2001, precisely on the infamous 9/11, we (some 70 of us including our children) were together for a reunion gathering up in the local mountain retreat site. Though we are now all dispersed and scattered beyond one church and So Cal location, we have kept in touch and have grown in our friendship and love. What privilege and blessing this is!
At the friends gathering, we took turns sharing and updating our lives, followed by prayers and blessings. We do not compromise on food, so we also made sure to share a sumptuous feast, thanks to the hosts. I left at night feeling a sense of loss followed by grief. The truth is I would not feel the loss if the situation and relationships are not founded on love. It is precisely because I love that I feel the loss even more. When I admit feeling loss, grief enters in. The invitation then is to open the door of my heart and welcome grief as a guest.
A few years ago, my oldest daughter Elizabeth, Grace, and I were enjoying lunch at one of our favorite local Mediterranean cafés nearby our house. I distinctively remember that Elizabeth asked us whether she could move to Minnesota in order to “spread her wings and learn to fly.” After a short thoughtful and grace-filled conversation, we blessed her and her desire. She knew and we knew that she was not asking for permission, but blessing. What she did, though, honored us deeply. Months later, she packed up her stuff and left for Minnesota. She was very mindful about visiting the rest of the family back in Pasadena. She even worked from Pasadena for a few months during the height of COVID lockdown season, avoiding the dreary winter in Minnesota. Thus, in some ways, I did not feel the loss as much. Until this time. . . She took a weeklong vacation to help with and to be in Hannah’s wedding as the maid-of-honor. Understandably, the week flew by. She was here one day and gone the next. I cling to a memory of the street taco run with Elizabeth and Hannah a few nights before the wedding. (Angelenos, check out the Angel’s Tijuana Tacos if you haven’t already!) My heart warmed as I watched Elizabeth joyously supporting and performing labors of love for her sister and the wedding. I cherish the conversations to-and-from the hopelessly congested LAX. The loss is real this time, which has migrated over to grief. I am giving myself permission and freedom to grieve.
Did I tell you Elizabeth has a Chihuahua dog called Remy, named after the leading character in the movie Ratatouille? Remy is a star and has more Instagram followers than I do. Over the recent years when Elizabeth came to visit us, she would bring Remy. Remy and I became best buddies. He is a cuddly lap dog who loves to sit on someone’s lap all day long if you let him. He is also a dog with a thousand facial expressions. He cracks me up and everyone around him and yes, I laugh at him. It is quite common to hear someone(s) bust out laughing WAHAHAHA or sigh AWWW throughout the day. Remy visited for a week for Hannah’s wedding. I experienced loss when Remy left as I noticed my lap was barren. What followed was a sense of grief. I know I cannot and should not “hold on” to Remy because I do not want to experience loss. Good loss can be experienced when acknowledging and not wanting to control ownership or demand status quo.
Hope is not the opposite of grief. Denial is. I am learning not to deny. I am learning to invite the feelings of loss and grief as welcomed guests in my heart. Hope can function as an antidote for grief over time, but only when there has been a proper process of grieving. Without dwelling in grief, hope never arrives. Even if it does, it remains shallow. The authors and poets of the Bible notch grief up even higher to a level of lament. God fully expects and invites us to grieve and lament. Grief allows and paves the way through a doorway of healing for a full flowering hope to arrive as barren winter patiently awaits the burgeoning life of spring. I feel I am at the cusp of tasting hope yet again. Hope, in this season, is a continuation of deepening intimacy and fellowship of life with family and friends amid natural normal disruptions as well as difficult seasons of life. In short, hope is community I can do life with. Hope is founded on the realization that I cannot do this life alone. (This rings so true now I am getting teary-eyed.) Hope is spring coming, infusing a vision of the vibrancy of life and exquisite enjoyment of life in love. Hope is the expectation of love blossoming all over again. Hope of a spring serves as a precursor to nature’s full blossoming of summer of love.