Four Funerals and No Wedding

This week I will have attended four funerals since Easter. Four. That seems like a large number. One incredible lady, one patriarch, one man barely in the midst of his life, and a young man just beginning his life full of promise.

There were also the two just before Easter. Those were the funerals of friends of WSU, women I hardly knew, women I wish I'd known better. In my job I work with families who establish memorials in honor of their loved ones. Many say they couldn't do my job. Many ask me what I say to these families, how do I handle their grief.

I say to them what I remember wanting to hear as I dealt with my own grief over the loss of Andrea. I handle their grief by listening, praying, and crying with them.  My job was never more clear to me than after Andrea's death, like a whisper "yes, this is why I do what I do."

And this is what I take with me to the funerals of close friends, relatives, loved ones. My grief. Not as painful, not as forceful, but always there. Someone told me you never stop grieving, you just learn to live with the grief. I am living with mine.

I came across this quote this morning just after reading Daniel's obituary:

If you learn from your suffering, and really come to
understand the lesson you were taught,
you might be able to help someone else
who's now in the phase you may have just completed.
Maybe that's what it's all about after all...

I know that I have not truly learned the entire lesson, that I have much more to learn. But what I have understood, what I have learned, I carry within me each day on my visits to families, during phone calls to families, to funerals of those I love, and grave sites of those I wish I'd loved more. I don't pretend to grieve the same, as each loss is different. I will never know your personal pain, but I can recognize it and I can understand. This is what I do.