Seven Lonely Days – A Man’s Journey Through Grief, #8 & 9
All week I’ve had snatches of a song running through my mind; “Seven lonely days make one lonely week.” It’s been almost five months since the Lord took Mary Helen home. I seem to have this grief-thing under control. Well, not quite. I know that I should be used to the empty condo by now. I should be able to go through my days without losing it. I should have control over my emotions. I try to fill my calendar with tasks, with people to meet, with writing, with books and articles to read. But no matter how much I try to fill it, emptiness echoes through my days and nights. Emptiness echoes off the walls.
“Seven lonely days” still echoes in my mind, and I break into protracted sobbing. Why? Because I miss Mary Helen. She was there to share ideas and memories. She was there to pray with. She was there to take the lead in remembering birthdays, in calling and in sending cards, and in hugging people at church and asking how their week went. Now the condo is empty.
“Seven lonely days.” I couldn’t remember the rest of it so I looked it up.
Seven lonely days make one lonely week
Seven lonely nights make one lonely me
Ever since the time you told me we were through
Seven lonely days I cried and cried for you.
Clearly the last half of that verse won’t work. I need to change it.
Seven lonely days make one lonely week
Seven lonely nights make one lonely me
Sixty-one happy years with my sweet honey-dew
Since you’ve gone home, I cry and cry for you.
I think I feel a little better after writing that. (If you want to hear an old rendition of that song go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtW9hNa67v4
TWELVE HUNDRED LONELY MILES A MAN’S JOURNEY THROUGH GRIEF CONTINUED, #9
I’ve just returned from a four-day road trip along the shores of Lake Erie and Huron and across the rich farmland of South-western Ontario. It was a good time to just wander and enjoy ideal summer weather. But in unexpected places and at unexpected times I was waylaid again by grief.
Sudden memories of having been here with Mary Helen surprised me. The delicious chowder we enjoyed in Port Dover. Sight of an old inn we remarked about. Suddenly, feelings that I thought behind me overwhelmed me.
Long, interesting but lonely miles with no one to point out roadside flowers to, no one to enjoy with me the view, no one to walk with around a harbour. Lonely motel rooms.
Everywhere I go I see couples together. Eating together. Laughing together. Walking hand in hand. It’s wonderful. Love is wonderful. God created such a wonderful thing when he created marriage where two people, a man and woman living together in covenant love. There is hardly anything more wonderful. What are houses and Lamborghinis and TV’s and rich food and exotic holidays and rewarding jobs? Nothing compared to love. No wonder I’m suddenly ambushed by loss. As a many have said:
Grief never ends,
But it changes.
It is a passage,
Not a place to stay.
Grief is not a sign of weakness
Nor a lack of faith,
It is the price of love.
Fortunately, more and more I’m feeling the love of God, higher than the heavens, longer than all of time. Lavishing our world with His amazing gifts of beauty and bounty. How wonderful is His grace in sending His Son to walk among us, loving us so much that he would take our sins to the cross! Rising from the dead to give us new life. I’m often these days waylaid by thoughts of His glorious love which so transformed my life and then our lives together. As one hymn writer put it;
Heaven above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green.
Something lives in every hue,
Christless eyes have never seen:
Birds with gladder songs o’er-flow,
Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know, I am His and He is mine.”
(Hymn, I Am His and He Is Mine, Wade Robinson)
Wild astersBut still, I think the Lord understands my sense of loss. After all, He brought us together. This morning I finished another box of tissue.
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