“Expecting the Inevitable”

Spoiler alert:  This blog will be a heavy one. At least, it feels heavy to me even as I begin.

There are many types of grief, and I’ve walked through several.

The first time grief touched me deeply was when I lost my dad to cancer. Although the journey lasted for over two years, the end still caught me by surprise. Even though, just a week before, I asked him if he thought he was dying…..even as I watched him decline; this vibrant hero of my childhood become weak and frail….even then, I was caught off-guard when he passed. I think a part of me genuinely believed that he would live forever in this life. That moment initiated me into real grief.

But the grief of losing someone important has visited me many times after its grand entrance.

In the loss of my mother.

In the tragic murder of my niece.

At the passing of beloved pets like Mya, our family’s first wonderful dog…..and Harvey, my little buddy……and his sister, Lola….only 10 short days later.

I have grieved at the loss of many I have served in ministry. I have sat next to many saints as they went to their reward.

Over the years, I have realized that those are sacred spaces to inhabit. The hallowed ground that is on the brink between this life and eternity.

But the grief of losing someone you love isn’t the only kind of grief. We often grieve any kind of loss in our lives.

Perhaps it is the loss of a relationship.

The loss of a job, or a career transition.

We grieve over changes in routine or leaving one home to move into another.

Grief is natural and good; the proper response to the people and things we lose along the way on this journey.

But today I am burdened with a different kind of grief. One that is a more sinister kind of thief. An elusive one that does its best to rob us of our present joy, and not just a grief that looks behind us. It’s what they refer to as “anticipatory grief,” and it has been slipping through the back door of my heart for some time now.

In a nutshell, anticipatory grief is simply the anticipation of future grief, and it is hard on the heart.

I confess…..I struggle to shake it.

I feel it every time my wife leaves to visit her family.

I often think about it as I hug my daughter to see her off to school.

Each time I strap my dog’s harness onto his neck, I remember that he will not be with me forever.

I feel the weight of it when I talk to my siblings, or when I see my best friend battle cancer, or when I gush over videos of my grandchildren.

Even as I embrace my deep love for these individuals, I simultaneously feel the pain of losing them.

Except…I haven’t.

And there’s the rub.

Anticipatory grief is a cruel beast, as it not only reminds you that this life is short and loss is inevitable, but it also urges you to carry that burden NOW.

It whispers deviously, “Why wait? You know this won’t last forever….you’ve been here before….you know how much this is going to hurt.”

And, on the one hand, it’s right.

This life is temporal. It is fragile. It can be gone in an instant.

But, on the other hand…..what is the point of attempting to feel what can only be truly felt when the loss is reality?

What is this about for me?

That’s what I’m really writing about….in the hopes I can understand myself a little better, and that maybe it can help some of you as well.

And as I try to press into this I wonder……am I trying to, in some strange way, protect myself from something? Is there some part of me that believes anticipatory grief is some kind of insulation against future pain?

I wonder….

See, before 2006……before the death of my father, I really believed that many constants in my life would always be there. Not only my dad, though certainly I believed he would always be there. But, really, a lot of other things

Like the way life felt easier back then.

I was still young enough to believe that the world was still out in front of me. Life was filled with hope and promise. Being young, a lot of things seemed easier then, too. You know……like exercise. 😊

But, seriously, the death of my father burst a bubble that I had been living in, and every loss since then has just removed more of that bubble.

It’s the illusion that comes with innocence, or ignorance, or denial, or whatever you want to call it.

And so, I wonder if some part of me wants to protect me from the pain of loss……by manufacturing….well, the pain of loss.

Weird, right?

But we see this kind of self-protection in other ways, don’t we?

Students, when intimidated by a big test, study less than they should because if they fail a test they didn’t study for….then maybe it won’t hurt so much to fail. I mean, if we study and THEN fail, that hurts.

Or the way we protect ourselves from getting too vulnerable in a relationship. Oh, we WANT vulnerability…..we desire love and intimacy…..but there is risk there too. And so, sometimes we sabotage relationships we want the most because if we are the cause of the loss, it won’t hurt as much as it would if the other person calls it quits.

I wonder if that is what anticipatory grief is trying to do.

Maybe that whisper in my ear is really my own.

The idea is that if I feel the loss now, it won’t hurt so much when it really happens.

But even as I type that, it feels ridiculous.

Because, if every time I try to express my love to my wife, or my kids, or my dog, I am feeling sadness instead of joy…..I’m not really protecting myself at all, am I?

And, in the process, what I’m really robbing myself of is the joy and precious time I actually have with these ever-important parts of my life.

I’m not softening the eventual loss. I’m just borrowing its pain.

And so…..here I am……all deep into self-discovery with very little idea of how to stop doing this.

Maybe, for now, recognizing it is enough.

Maybe when that familiar sadness slips in as I hug my wife, or watch my daughter drive away, or fasten Ludo’s harness, I can simply remind myself that the loss I’m grieving hasn’t happened yet.

They are still here.

And I don’t have to rehearse losing them in order to prepare myself for the day when I do.

Grief will have its time. I know that better than I wish I did. When it comes, I will hurt. I will mourn. And somehow, as I have before, I will find my way through it.

But that day is not today.

Today, the people I love are still here to be loved. There are conversations still to have. Hugs still to give. Walks still to take. Moments still waiting to become memories.

And I don’t want the fear of someday losing those moments to keep me from actually living them.

Because even though loss really is inevitable, I wonder if it also must be continual.