It’s been two months since Henry’s death and it seems like my opinion and observation of grief changes with each moment.  Sometimes it feels like a bomb went off beside me and I’m wandering around, dazed and unable to hear, picking up random pieces of my life that survived.  Sometimes it feels like an unending uphill hike where I have to look down at my feet and focus on each individual step in order to keep going.  Recently it has felt like a tropical storm – moments of bright sunshine and warm breeze, but mostly torrential downpour and high winds.  After my relatively brief two month experience of intense grief, I’ve concluded that there is no pattern or process involved – and my highly organized, systems driven, categorical brain has been actively searching for one.  I’m never quite sure when a giant storm cloud is going to blow in, block the sun and drench me and I’m equally surprised when the winds blow the cloud away and the warm sun shines again.

While I have very little control over grief itself, I think I have found a consistent pattern in my emotional state.  The more I am focused on myself, the more miserable I am.  Last week I decided that the hardest, most painful part of Henry’s death was missing him.  This seems like an obvious observation when I write it down, but it keeps hitting me in the face.  I have never experienced a physical manifestation of an emotional hurt so intense in my life.  I just want to hold and hug that little guy.  I want to kiss his forehead and cheeks and fluff out his wild hair.  I want to hear his little husky voice finally say, “mama!”  But I can’t.  No amount of smelling his stinky tennis shoes, cuddling with his blanket and holding his favorite musical Fisher Price dog is any kind of consolation or substitution for what I really want.  So I feel disappointed and I feel fearful that I will feel this intense pain every day for the rest of my life, and fearful that I won’t.

This morning I was again lamenting all the things I miss about Henry and all the things I will never get to do with him.  As usual, these thoughts quickly led down the spiral to the obsessive “me” thoughts.  “I just want to hold him.  I can’t remember what it felt like to hold him.  I’m so sad.  I don’t’ think I’m strong enough to deal with this. Am I ever going to be fully happy again?  Will I ever feel complete again?  Is it selfish to ask these questions? How could I have let this happen to my sweet baby?  Why couldn’t I have prevented it? Will I be able to know and do what the Lord requires of me?  Why am I so sad recently?  Why, this week, do the sad times seem to outnumber the happy ones?”  And then I realized, the difference between this week and previous weeks – I’ve been fundamentally focused on me.  I’ve been focused in thought on what I have lost, what I will miss, and how sad I will always be.

I immediately remembered a quote by Albert Schweitzer that I had on my bulletin board all through college.

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

This isn’t a new concept to me, it is something I have been taught and have believed since childhood.  I have been raised by generous, compassionate, kind Christian parents.  I have long believed the teachings of Christ such as, “if anyone wants your shirt, give him your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go two. Give to those who ask. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” And the greatest commandment of all, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself”  or as we are directed in the book of Philippians “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Ashamedly, my adult life has largely been a betrayal of these beliefs.  While I feel empathy for my friends and even my enemies, my actions have often denied any commitment to love, serve and help my neighbors in need.  I just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.  Whether they were in their home in Haarlem or sleeping amongst fleas in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Betsie and Corrie’s primary objective was serving the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of anyone who was near them – friend or enemy.  They viewed every circumstance and location in which they found themselves a perfect place to share the joy of the Lord with whomever was there.

This love of God and service to others – this focus on others instead of me, this is the key.  This is the only antidote.  This is how joy becomes deeper than pain.  It was the only antidote before Henry died, I just didn’t understand it then. When I focus on how God can use this pain to help others, when I think of how He might use me to help others, I feel joy.  It is supernatural joy from God, not anything I could conjure up on my own strength of will or character.