“Peter, take my hand!” – Gamora, Guardians of the Galaxy
A decade has gone by as if no time at all. Ten years ago today, I lost my mother to cancer, and I sometimes feel like I’ve lived an entire other life since then. And then there are those moments when it feels like it could have just happened yesterday. I lost my best friend, my cheerleader, my rock, and the woman who helped shape me into the person I am today. My children lost a grandmother. My father lost his beloved wife. The world lost an amazing woman. But today is not a day I choose to dwell on the loss or sadness. Those days are over, not because I don’t still feel pain or sadness at losing her, but because it’s been a long while now since I’ve focused on the joy and gratitude at having been lucky enough to have her in the first place.
Jesus said in the famed Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” I never really understood that growing up, even with my catholic school upbringing. How can those who mourn and have suffered loss ever consider themselves blessed?
But it takes experiencing loss to sometimes understand just how blessed you are, not for who or what you’ve lost, but for all the things you can seek to gain if you let yourself embrace grief to turn it into something even more poignant…Peace. Pardon the Marvel metaphor here (although I suppose it’s actually a simile if you want to get technical), but grief is a lot like the Power Infinity Stone, too great for one person to bear, but when shared among those we love, a conquerable burden. That’s what Jesus meant. Those who mourn will be comforted because they will not walk alone, not for a single step. That’s the part that will, over time, reveal a lasting peace.
That peace comes in every text from a friend on this day letting me know they are thinking of me and my mom. It comes in extra hugs from my husband and kids today, hugs that come without words, just the shared knowledge that we all know why. It comes in a rainy trip to the cemetery that ended in sunny beauty. It’s being able to remember all the parts of my mom, even her faults, and realizing it’s never too late to embrace again all the things you thought you may have forgotten. It comes in sharing stories and traditions with the people I love that keep my mom alive in my heart every day.
In short, that peace comes by continuing to live on, not in perpetual mourning, but eventually in a shared and joyful grief with those around us who loved as we did, or helped share our burden, or said something kind, or made us laugh in a time of sadness, or held our hand as we cried, or perhaps just offered a sympathetic smile on a bad day.
There’s so much hope in grief, but it takes time, patience, and a willingness to allow happiness again before we can see it. Those who mourn are truly blessed, not because we’ve lost, but because we endure. And if we let ourselves share the burden and take someone’s outstretched hand, we can eventually endure with a grateful and happy heart.
Elizabeth Banak Books 