27 September 2012
When we seek relief
Of all the freedoms the mother of very young children surrenders, perhaps the most emptying is the freedom to grieve. A baby's smile must be returned. A toddler's manic, violent adoration must be reciprocated. They cannot understand another's sadness. A mother cannot close her door and bawl out her sorrow, scream at it or sleep it away. Is mourning selfish? Is even this another avarice of which she must be purged? Grief denied; who could imagine such a thing?
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5 comments:
Inasmuch as human beings are by nature selfish and everything they do (even the really good stuff) is tainted by that fact, I suppose the need to grieve is selfish, too. But the God of creation did not design a race of unfeeling automatons. He made people, and He made them to feel and eat and breathe and sleep. Are those selfish acts? I guess so. But that's kind of beside the point, isn't it?
In time of deep grief and mourning, I found the gazes of a baby or the needs of a toddler to be a deliverance for me. To meet their needs gave me a reason to put one foot in front of the other and go on functioning. They could not comfort me with empathy, but their very faces and presence and were a very tangible comfort, saying God is still good.
Yes but even when we grieve, are we not teaching our children what it means? I'll never forget how my tears at hearing of my father's death so affected my two oldest who were only 5 and 3 at the time.
I have also struggled with "where to put my mourning" and I am a mother of children who are late teens now and early 20's. This burden is not limited to young mothers although I grant it is different as I can lock myself away for a while to regain my composure. As the children grew older and their dear grandparents aged and left this mucky world, I often ask myself if I did have an adequate balance between meeting my own needs of mourning and yet also providing the bulwark that my children so needed. I never wanted my burden to become their burden and yet I know that they were not harmed by seeing grief at work as we worked through these earthly losses.
I consider grieving in front of my children my compassion instruction for homeschooling. :)
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