When I started this writing blog, I promised I would share all of the things I’ve learned or am learning. No writer’s journey will be identical, but there may be some things we can learn from each other along the way. This post will be one of the more difficult ones for me to share. I don’t pretend to be the only writer to have experienced grief or pain. Almost everyone has experienced sorrow and tribulation at some point. But I think I can say that God teaches each person something different through each experience. I have often read books that reached so deep into a character that I wondered how it could be extracted. I’ve not been surprised to find out later, that the author pulled from his/her own well of sorrow. Once learning that, I’ve thought on more than one occasion, I don’t wish to be a great writer if that is what it takes. And I still don’t. I don’t believe I will ever be a great writer, but the desire for it has dimmed considerably over the past week. There have been many days that I’ve thought it a trivial pursuit and had decided that I’ll not work toward publication anymore. I’m still not ready to get back to work on my project. And I hesitate to ever share key chapters I had just posted in my beta reader group a few hours before learning my brother had died. The trouble isn’t how emotional they were. The trouble is how spot on accurate they were. And I feel my character’s pain more deeply than ever now.  But writing is always how I’ve processed things.  It is how I give a voice to my emotions.  So though I feel like I may go on a writing hiatus for a time, while I sort out how to proceed, I can’t stop writing altogether.  Nor do I believe that is God what intends for me.  Just this morning, I read in Psalm 90:9, “For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.” (Italics are how the words are written in my Bible, not my emphasis.)  Was that for me, Lord?  Is that Your quiet assurance that this isn’t a trivial venture?  That writing can still play a role in my life when I don’t know quite what to say and am still gathering my words?  That somehow, maybe these words You’ve given can somehow reach into someone else’s heart and speak assurance and comfort?  I don’t know the answers to all those questions.

I’ve walked this path before in a different way.  This one feels harder, and I haven’t quite been able to identify why.  Maybe I’m not supposed to.  When my Father died fifteen years ago last month, I’d been living in Chicago for several years.  I didn’t get to be here for all the family birthdays and special occasions.  My father had his first heart attack at 41 which doesn’t give great assurance that a person will live a long life, and God gave him twenty more years, which is probably long for someone in his situation.  So when my family came up for a visit just a month before his passing, I could see how his health had quickly deteriorated.  I think it was God’s way of preparing me for what was to come.  And when a month later, we gathered around his hospital bed, with the knowledge he had only two days left (at the most), we shared stories and said our goodbyes.  I didn’t have that opportunity with my brother.  I was not prepared for the phone call.  I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.  Again, many people have been through something like this.  I know that.  And I suddenly feel a common bond with all those who’ve lost a younger sibling.  Because it doesn’t feel like it should be that way.  Just like it doesn’t feel right that a mother should watch her son go before her.  But God is right in all things.  I don’t say that with hesitation.  He is.  What feels right, and what is right often get confused, don’t they?

In the days after, these were the words I heard most from people: “I don’t know what to say.”  I understand. I’ve said them too, and more often than not, I’ve said nothing.  I regret that now.  What I think we actually mean when we say that though, isn’t that we don’t know what to say, it’s that “I don’t know what to say that will not cause that pain in your eyes.”  or “I don’t know what to say that will not cause you to cry” or “I don’t know what to say that will fix this.”  I’m a fixer.  A peacemaker.  When someone is hurting or in trouble, I want to help. And when I’m also a person who uses her words, and I have no words to use, I feel helpless.  I think what also renders us speechless is that everyone processes grief differently.  Some embrace. Some do not.  Some cry and nod. Some do not.  Some seem approachable.  Others less so.  So our default position can sometimes be to say nothing.  I hope I’ve learned through this that a simple “I’m sorry” and “I’m praying for you” is enough (and a hug if they want one).  Something else you can say that will help?  If you knew the person, share a memory or a story about them.  My brother was a quiet person who often kept his family and friend life separate.  His friends knew a lot more about us than we knew about them.  Over the past week, his friends have shared what they loved about him.  They were often the same things we loved about him.  That’s healing.  And preserves the brother we knew.  I still miss him.  I didn’t talk to him every day like I do some of my other siblings.  Maybe that’s what makes this harder too.  It wasn’t that we weren’t close, it’s just he was a single guy doing single guy stuff.  But he knew I loved him.  And I knew he loved me.  Even if we didn’t say it every day.  And regret and what ifs won’t change anything.  What it does do is give me a chance to do better in the future.  And one thing I know I will take with me is that I know what to say, and I have to have the courage to say it when I have the chance.

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