Grief is hole-y.
I don’t know why grief is the way she is, but what I know is that she’s hole-y.
No, that’s not a misspell, and yes, I know that it’s a little cheesy.
But it’s the best way that I’ve got to describe it.
10 years from the day I first held Lily in my arms, and almost 14 years since my last words with my dad, and I still walk around with two giant holes in my heart.
I used to believe that these would be filled over time and with healing. I’ve done the good grief work, I’ve seen the people, I’ve worked through the things, I’ve had the conversations.
Yet, still - every hour of every day - I walk around with the awareness of tragic and intimate loss centered right in the heart of who I am.
I walk each day and each year anew -
As daughter to a deceased alcoholic who was my favorite person in the world
As mom to a deceased daughter whose heart beat inside of mine for 8 months and outside of mine for 1 month.
The holes persist. They’ve gotten a little less sharp around the edges and the dark abyss that once surrounded them is gone, but the holes remain.
Maybe this is what they mean by loss.
What is lost cannot be replaced.
I want to believe that my faith can heal me this side of heaven, that I could somehow one day distance myself from the pain of these losses.
But I sense each time that I wrestle with this narrative, the gentle invitation of the Spirit to come a little deeper:
To let the holes remain.
To feel their rounded edges.
What was once sharp,
smoothed over time.
And in slipping my finger around the familiar edges,
The memory, the joy, the sorrow…
Are all at once mine.
The holes remain, because they tether me to who they were. And I am who I am now because of who they were. I cannot be without their imprint, and thus, without the holes.
So, I let them stay.
Sometimes I’m annoyed by them.
Wish they hadn’t happened to me.
Wish this cup had been passed to another.
Sometimes I’m enraged by them, if we’re being honest.
Addiction, a disease, a cruel master,
Stole from me one of my greatest treasures.
And hospitals and doctors, without right resources and right reasoning, they too,
Stole from me the very breath of life formed by DNA.
Sometimes, though, on the opposite hand, I’m delighted by these holes.
Their presence reminds me of the joy of who they are to me: father + daughter.
I remember the things: the feel of their skin, the songs sung, the twinkle in their eyes, the knownness of love.
And sometimes I’m struck by them.
Too heavy to move, too sorrow-filled for deep breaths, too many tears for the Kleenex on standby.
But, still, in all of that, I’ve chosen to let these holes remain.
To welcome them, even,
Because the tethering to them and the tethering to the One who sustained me makes these holes more than simpletons….
They are holy.
I won’t likely be healed this side of heaven, but until then, and especially on weekends like this (my dad’s favorite holiday and Lily’s birthday), I welcome and sit with them.
Grief is hole-y.
And I don’t understand it.
But I welcome its Divine Accompaniment in.