It's been a long time between blog posts hasn't it? Two weeks in fact.
Actually, I put up a photo a a few days ago but took it down a few
hours later because it caused too much heartache.
I guess the lack of blogs reflects the fact that not much has changed.
While Ben's absence is constantly with us and there are still things
to say, it seems that most of what we might say has already been
said in the blogs below.
Someone asked me recently if I had days where I didn't think about Ben
or feel the pain. I said, "No... hours perhaps, but not days." And I
think for Lindy it's minutes maybe but not hours.
Someone else who has lost three babies talked of a 'new normal'. It's
not that you go back to normal, she said, but that you adjust what you
expect normal to be. That seems to make sense for me at present:
normal at the moment (and "for as long as it takes"), is like living
with a weight on my shoulders and an unseen but constant shadowy
companion that dampens my spirits and makes me more prone to
frustration and grumping at Lindy and the boys.
So now I go back to my study and think of Hans-Georg Gadamer's
descriptions of the 'finiteness' of human existence. And I'm reminded
of St Paul's words at the end of his chapter on love in his first
letter to the Corinthians: Now we see things only indistinctly like a
blurred image in a mirror. Now what I know is incomplete. But one day
I will know fully, even as I have been fully known by God. Right now
three things remain sure: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of
these is love.
Thank you for listening!
Chris
3 comments:
somebody described it to me as an unexpected destination; as if you had bought a ticket for Paris and arrived in Amsterdam. You don't understand the roads, people, or traditions but with time you learn a new way of living.
we are here listening and i really wish there was something that would ease things.
much love
x
Through my work I've come across grief often. With my wife we have also grieved. But the sentiments expressed here through Ben's loss makes me realise that grief really can be a vast ocean. It scares me to be reminded how much God can call us to rely on Him with the tossing and turning of the waves above us.
Marc
I too am well acquainted with grief at various times of my life and in various forms, with people of various ages. I watched a movie the other day (The Secret Life of Bees - great movie Lindy!) and a comment one of the characters made was about living without a family member: that it's like having a hole inside you all the time with it affecting you sometimes more than others but in essence it is always there. You do things to try to make it go away, but it never goes away - it just is there whether you consciously think about it or not. Love hearing from you guys - how you are traveling, thinking. Much love Suz
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