Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”
David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.

• 2 Samuel 12:13-25

“Facing the holidays for the first time after a loss can be very difficult and most grievers have a sense of dread in even anticipating them. If you are grieving, recognize that you do not have to please others who may expect you to do what you did on previous holidays.
“In an article in the periodical, Grief Digest, Rob Anderson wrote:
“ ‘For our healing to begin, it’s important to grieve honestly, even if it means others will leave us. If you don’t want to attend traditional family gatherings around holidays, birthdays or vacations because you just can’t do it, then don’t do it. And there is no reason to make excuses, or to apologize as to why you can’t be there. A broken heart needs no reason to stay home.’ ”

• Lillian L. Meyers, I’m Sorry for Your Loss …

The holidays are upon us, and I know that I am not the only one who has lost a loved one this year.  At the November prayer team meeting, I prayed that for the rest of the year, I would face my wife’s birthday and her very special holiday, Veteran’s Day, because she loved researching the best free food.  All before Thanksgiving Day.  And that did not mention the December holidays, with Sinterklaas near the beginning of December and then Christmas and New Years to follow.

One lady who was at the meeting and has been a widow for three years sent me the book containing the quote above.  The author researched the topic of grief after her son died in a car accident.  The book is dedicated to that son, but with a PhD in Psychology, working as a therapist, she could not just grieve.  She had to research the topic, becoming a certified grief educator.  Her book is available on Amazon.

The book is so broad in scope, if you are grieving, you may not find everything helpful, but you will find something helpful for your grief process.  As she starts with, grief is not a straight line.  But the quote above is how she starts the topic of “Facing the First Holidays.”

She continues with a series of bullet points.  One of the first was, if you fear the holiday, write your fears down.  In writing for this blogsite, before reading the book, I was already doing a lot that she suggested.  Not because I learned how in class or by reading a book, but because it was the way I processed things.  That made me feel good, reading such things.  I was doing something right!

Note: That was a dig at all those in my past who said I never did anything right.  My wife even said that when my brother, father, and then mother died in a three month stretch of time, she said I was wrong for not weeping.  I made up for it when she passed away, and my eyes get wet often, for no apparent reason – also discussed in the book.

Maybe I missed it in the book, but I learned from a television show that the tears you produce when you are sad are different than the normal tears you produce all the time to lubricate the eye and protect the cornea, which does not have blood vessels.  Sad tears have a hormone that causes you to calm down a little.  So, it is helpful to cry and produce those tears.

One other bullet was about traditions, but I went the opposite way from her suggestion.  She said to not feel trapped by traditions.  Some people feel comfort in traditions, but if you do not wish to participate, don’t.  I went to my son’s house for Thanksgiving.  That is another point, to surround yourself with family during holiday time.  But my son was one of those who needed to break from traditions.  He fixed traditional dishes, but he used his own culinary flare in doing so.  They were the same dishes, but they weren’t.  After the meal, I thanked him for some very tasty dishes.  I then went to a quiet corner of the den where I had been sleeping on the sofa.  I prayed, “God, I doubt if you will pass this message along, but I miss the way my wife cooked those dishes.  Am I wrong in missing that?”  My eyes got wet, but I did not weep.  I just had to be alone.

The day before I wrote this, I had been back in Pennsylvania for over a week.  I made cornbread.  I roasted a turkey.  That was always my job anyway.  Then, I took some stale bread, left out while I was in Tennessee for nearly two weeks.  I chopped it up along with the cornbread.  I did not have any bacon thawed for frying, so I took some Canadian bacon and cut it into thin strips and fried it to make it a little crispy.  I added the spices, and then I poured enough turkey drippings into the mix to make it roughly cookie dough consistency, mashing it with my hands, the way my wife did.  I baked it without the celery (which I forgot) and the onion (which triggers my IBS problems).  I then baked it to a golden brown, basically needing to dry it out.  It almost tasted like candy.  I had never used that brand of cornbread mix, so it might have had more sugar.  The Canadian bacon changed the flavor a bit, but maybe I was eating what I had missed at Thanksgiving.

Some of the other bullet points were to not ignore the holiday and be realistic in your expectations.  And get plenty of rest.

Everyone grieves differently, and as I learned at Thanksgiving, it gets a little awkward when one grieving person’s means of grieving sets your grieving on edge, but family is very important.  Learn that a few tears or a lot of tears are okay during the holiday season.  And as Forrest Gump might say about now, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”  Any more words and the keyboard will get wet.

What I am saying is that I know that I am not alone.  I know something about what you are going through.  And when the waterfall from the eyes starts to flow, turn to God.  He knows what we are going through also, but He provided the answer to all our questions and fears.  He sent His Son to die in our place, so that when we experience the first death, we will live with Him in Paradise forever.  My wife knows.  She is there already.

Why use the Scripture above?  David broke the mold in this passage.  He grieved prior to his son’s death, praying for mercy from God.  When his son died, he did not lament in the normal way.  As he said, can I bring my son back?  He then slept with his wife and produced another son, Solomon.  David did not grieve as his advisors and close friends expected.

You should be given permission to grieve in your own way, but I hope and pray you have supporting people around you.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.