Waking yourself up crying is not the kind of thing you easily forget. In fact it is the exact opposite of what the mournful psalmist David writes in Psalm 30:5 (b), “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.” When reading this passage the first thing that may come to mind is…

“Guess what David? You’re a great poet but you’ve got this all wrong. Morning should be spelled mourning. I know you think weeping is for the night, but it’s morning and I’m still crying.”

This kind of grief is the kind you wake up to. It’s the kind that reaches all the way down to your guts and spills out of your unconscious being. There are no words anyone can say to you in that moment. Really the only thing you want is someone to hold you and even though that may help for a while, like a wave, grief comes again and again and threatens to knock you over leaving you terrified that you won’t be able to tread through that kind of pain any longer.

Fortunately, for me I didn’t have too many more “crying myself awake” mornings after my Dad’s death and I had been blessed with a beautiful son to love and care for. Some people aren’t so lucky though. They are literally left alone without a single person or pet in the home. They may have grown fearful at the thought of going it alone or they may turn to substances and unhealthy activities, behaviors or relationships. Questions undoubtedly arise that there are no answers for.

Questions in particular I’ve had are “If joy comes in the morning, then why am I still crying?” and “Will I ever feel normal again?”
The reality is there isn’t any easy way to answer this AND there shouldn’t be. Crying, getting angry, feeling desperate, alone, troubled, weak, sickly, torn, devastated, and empty are all perfectly normal reactions when you lose someone you love. What if instead of trying to make all those awful feelings go away as quickly as possible, we chose to honor them by allowing them.

Reflection:

Ask yourself, “How am I supposed to feel?” If you can answer this honestly you may be on your way to honoring your grief and the one your troubled soul misses.