My Story
When I was a young mother, my oldest son, Justin, who was five at the time, had open-heart surgery. Complications in the days following surgery, left Justin in a coma and a few weeks later while Justin was still in ICU the doctors began to prepare my husband and me for the possibility of brain damage. As part of that preparation process, we were given a tour of the rehab unit. As I would write years later, I was completely unprepared for what I witnessed there, and my eyes were opened to a world I barely knew existed and never imagined might exist for Justin and my family. The reality of brain damage and what that might look like completely overwhelmed me and I was undone.
Later I would write about that experience in my book My Journey with Justin:
Once we were back in the ICU, I quickly excused myself and blindly made my way to the ladies’ room. It was empty and I shut myself in a stall. Tears that I had long held in check began to fall in a steady flow and drip from my chin. I heaved silent sobs for a few moments and then tried to regain my composure. When I felt I could finally breathe steadily, I made my way to the sink and tried to bathe my eyes and wash away the evidence of my tears.
While I was trying to conceal the evidence of my lost composure, an elderly woman entered. I recognized her as one of the custodians of the ICU. Though she rarely spoke, her eyes always had a gentle look of compassion. When she saw me desperately trying to squelch the flow of tears that refused to stop, she touched my shoulder and gently said, “Honey, you have every reason to cry. Crying don’t mean you’ve given up and it don’t mean God has left you or that little boy of yours neither.”
Her words brought on an onslaught of fresh tears; they were exactly the truth that I needed to hear.
By refusing to let myself cry or even acknowledge that Justin’s situation looked grim, I was desperately trying to hold on to my faith. I still could not believe that the God I trusted would allow something so bad to happen if he did not ultimately plan a happy ending.
Did God heal Justin? Ultimately, yes. Twelve years later I would give my precious son back to my precious Lord. But God used the journey in-between to both heal and grow my heart.
Denial and Grief
In her 1969 book, “On Death and Dying,” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist, outlined the five most common emotions related to the grief of death and dying. Before her death in 2004 she wrote On Grief and Grieving which applies the stages she observed in her original writings to grieving.
Having suffered loss through brain damage, mental illness, death, and broken relationships, I think these stages apply to many forms of suffering and loss.
The most common stage usually experienced first is denial. Denial lasted a long time as I walked through that first really hard loss in my life. My brain and my heart just could not accept that brain damage would permanently alter the child I once had and that I would never again have the little boy that I took to the hospital on that spring day in May 1992. I felt I could not hold to my faith and still grieve and acknowledge the reality of Justin’s brain damage.
Letting Go and Holding On
Perhaps like me, you are holding back tears, hoping that by refusing to grieve you can somehow hold on to faith and hope. Maybe you fear that if you do cry, you won’t be able to stop. I’ve been there too.
The hardest part of grief and loss is when the numb state of denial and detachment begins to fade, and the pain of reality begins to set in. But accepting reality doesn’t mean letting go of your faith in a good God. Tears can be faithful, my friend. In fact, it is the strongest act of faith to let go and believe if God is truly good, then He is good whether or not we see His goodness.
My Prayer for You
And so, my prayer for you is the prayer of David in Psalm 27:13
I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Tears may come, my friend, but joy will come again.