There was a sense of grief tonight. An unexpected, yet familiar sense of wrongness as the self I thought was doing so well slowly sank into remembrances and downcast heart.
The lead up to Good Friday and the anniversary of my dad’s death was early this year. The actual anniversary of loss is a set day in April, close to my birthday, but Good Friday is the day of my soul griefUsually there are a couple more weeks of readiness, or if not readiness, at least acknowledgement that the grief time of year was coming. But this year is an early Easter and with the busyness of the past couple of weeks, I thought this years grief might slip past me with only the gentlest of reminders.
Whether it was the weariness of the night time quiet or the quirk of a lip that reminded me of my dad, I was in it. The grief that even after 17 years, still settles in. The body remembers.
I should have felt it creeping up on me. Surprising in context and frequency, the song my dad requested be sung at his funeral was part of communal worship times of which I was a part. At work today, I told stories about my dad. How he never had more than a day’s stubble and used a safety razor. Strange things to come up at staff coffee but when anniversaries like this come unbeknownst to others, we can slip in these memories and have them stay suspended in place for just a moment and remember. We can remember without explaining and have our memory be self-contained without the sympathy.
The sympathy aches. The no-one knowing aches. Seventeen years later, it aches and the tears and clenched throat come. Because with each new stage of life come situations and shared experiences that are missing the person you love. You wonder what they would think of you now, this person who saw you from birth and helped shape you. Dad would be pleased and proud, I know, but I would love to hear him say it , just one more time.
There’s so much about vigil on this last night before Good Friday. The vigil of the disciples who slept through last moments with Jesus. The tears of a man knowing death was near and bearing the losses and weight of the whole world through time. All the tears of grief and sorrow and the next day, the feeling of separation from his Heavenly father.
As the disciples looked at Jesus on the cross, hid in the aftermath of his public torture and death, what did they wish had been said? Did they regret missing those last moments to love him through prayer and steadfastness as he poured out himself in prayer for them?
What were their memories in the liminal space between loss and resurrection?
What vacancies of self and certainty did they experience?
I grieve the loss of my dad, oh how I grieve it. But the deepening of Good Friday has been deeply transformative and significant. To gloss over Good Friday with a ‘Don’t be sad, Sunday’s coming” leaves a hastily filled topper over the hole that loss leaves within us.
As the Israelites met yearly to lament over the loss of the temple, the rhythm of lament in my life pauses me. It brings feelings to the surface I would rather not experience, but I need to experience them. Grief places me deeply in the present. I can’t rush by it, I can’t escape the need to relinquish the lie that I am unaffected by the incongruence of death with how God intended our lives to be.
As I sit tonight, alone and grieving, I picture Jesus in the garden, in the jail cell, alone and grieving. I am not alone in my grief experience. Jesus grieves for me and with me. I grieve with Jesus and for Jesus. It is this comfort that I am so grateful for and for which I am unwilling to wish away my Good Friday experiences. As my grief builds, so does my recognition of Jesus’s presence. The Paschal Mystery is more deeply comforting and vivid because of my grief. I don’t need to be in any space other than this one, as I acknowledge my deep need for the crucified Christ who was my Father’s hope.
I vigil, and while I vigil, I grieve, and I don’t rush the coming of dawn as I wait with Jesus.
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