When we first lost our 18 year old son to cancer, the grief was so acute, so intense, I was unsure I would ever heal. I could not fathom a day when the pain did not feel crushing. I could not grasp a time would come where I did not feel overwhelmed with sorrow.
Those ahead of me on this journey of loss assured me healing would come, yet if I’m honest, it was hard for me to believe. In some ways, I struggled to trust those ahead of me. Had they experienced the same level of pain? The same depth of loss? How can a mother ever move past losing a child?
We are inching near to four years now without Ezra and as I consider the pain and loss, I think what I am realizing is that in many ways, healing has come, but it has come quietly, often without notice, and sometimes so silently I hardly recognized it.
The first days, weeks and months after loss were wrought with a level of pain I did not know existed. The sorrow was so overwhelming, I did not know how I would endure. The season of acute pain morphed into a season of exhaustion. I grew so tired of being sad, I wondered if I would ever smile again, ever feel joy? I would have a day every now and again that felt a little lighter, a little less heavy, but the reality was every day still felt impossibly hard. I went through the motions of living with no real delight. I showed up because it was necessary, an act of discipline, but I had no zeal, no fervor for life. Even when lighter days came, I had grown accustomed to hard days of sorrow; expecting them as the norm.
Ever so slowly, however, the lighter days became more frequent; like the quiet arrival of spring as new life begins to peek out from under winters’ frozen blanket. Good days began to stack on top of one another. I found I could smile a little more easily; engage life with a little less duty. The hard days still came, sometimes many in a row, but as time marched on, even as those bad days came, I found hope that the easier days would come as well. The darkness began to lift. The sorrow was no longer all-encompassing.
Healing began to feel tangible and ever so quietly, it began to work its way into my heart. It was not all at once. It was not some big, monumental moment of decision. It came in tiny, pin-prick moments that, when considered alone, were hardly noticeable. As each pin-prick left its minuscule hole, however, light began to break the monotony of darkness that had enshrouded my life for so many months.
Today, almost four years past loss, I can see there is still healing that needs to take place, but it doesn’t feel as insurmountable as it once did. I also understand now that I will never be fully healed this side of eternity. There are some losses and pains we endure which will not be fully restored in this life, rather, we must patiently wait for Christ to “make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Before facing monumental loss, I used view grief like a broken bone; acute pain followed by full restoration. I imagine that is some of why I could not comprehend ever being healed; I misunderstood what healing would look like.
I now understand healing is different than what I previously understood. A mother will never move past losing a child, but she does learn to press forward with the pain of it. In many ways, losing a child is less like breaking a bone and more like that of losing a limb. You learn to walk again. You may even thrive again in the life you live, but it’s never quite the same. The wound begins to heal but the scar and pain remain. The limp is always there, telling the story of loss, reminding me of the life I knew which was forever changed.
Almost four years past loss, I can see that healing has come, yet I recognize that it came quietly. Many days, it was so small and incremental I did not notice it; could not feel its presence. It was never linear. It often felt like one step forward and two steps back and the backward steps led me to believe there was no motion. Yet healing came, one tiny moment after another, until one day I began to notice its presence.
I am confident in eternity with Christ, healing will be complete; it will be full and loud. For the time being, however, it will remain a quiet journey coming one tiny moment after another. One day the loss will make sense; the hope will be sure in the presence of Jesus. In that day, the sorrow will “not be remembered nor will [it] come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). I long for that day with great hope.
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