Tomorrow would be my son Bryan’s 22nd birthday on the 22nd. His “golden birthday.” That was a new term for me. A golden birthday is a birthday year when you turn the age that corresponds to the day of the month of your birthday. Bryan only lived to be 16, but time has moved on. And a new milestone arose.
So how do you celebrate? How do you honor someone once they are gone? How do you move forward while looking back? That is the paradox of mourning. Dr. Alan Wolfelt, a famous death educator, grief counselor, and author, wrote about it in “The Paradox of Mourning.”
Paradox 1: You must say hello before you can say goodbye.
Saying hello acknowledges that our loved one is gone, and we won’t see them again this side of heaven. We miss them. “Our hellos and goodbyes overlap one another, with more hellos needed at the start of our grief journeys and more goodbyes in the later days.” (Alan Wolfelt)
Paradox 2: You must make friends with the darkness before you can enter the light.
None of us want to feel grief-related emotions: sadness, emptiness, shame, fear, and perhaps anger. Yet they are accurate, and we have them, even if they are pushed back. “Only after sufficiently engaging with the darkness can we begin to reenter the light of hope, gratitude, happiness, joy, love, and peace.” (Alan Wolfelt)
Paradox 3: You must go backward before you can go forward.
Going backward is about remembering all the times you had, good and bad. “All of this backward-looking prepares you, eventually, to be ready to start looking forward again, with hope and a healing heart.” (Alan Wolfelt)
Jill Cione, a friend and grief counselor, has taught me a significant lesson about how to help others on the grief journey. “You don’t treat grief. You companion it.” You enter their world and be with them in their pain. What a great description of my heart’s desire for our local grief group, Rebuild. To walk beside others on a road none of us want to be on – the journey of grief. To learn together to say hello and goodbye. To make friends with the darkness. To move back together so we can move forward.
If you are grieving and need help, we would love to have you join us. New groups begin each Fall and Spring on Monday nights at 7 PM at Woodcreek Church. For more information, check out Rebuild, Finding Hope after Loss.
