Rev. Susan Bresser

I was 14 years old when my grandma died. I didn't know much about loss growing up …probably because I was somewhat insulated in a small community, my parents worked very hard to create stability for our family and we were connected to people who cared about us. There seemed to be a great sense of protection and safety.

My grandma … she was something else. For 14 years I had known a woman who loved being a grandma and we loved being her grandchildren. Her home was the special place … toys, games, peppermint candy, nickels and dimes, books, paints, bubble baths, cinnamon toast, a swing set in the backyard just for us. The memories are very powerful.

When I was 10 years old, my parents farmed us out to relatives because they were going on a trip. I stayed with Grandma & Grandpa, where I had my own bedroom – the yellow room – with a canopy bed. While visiting my grandparents, I acquired a pair of roller skates. I skated up and down the sidewalk in front of their home for days. When it started to rain, it seemed as if my skating days were over. But Grandma let me skate inside … where I could make a loop: front room, living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry, family room, back to the front room. The front room, the living room and the dining room were formal rooms … thick white carpeting, velvet settees, a baby grand piano, Staffordshire china displayed precariously in china cupboards. I skated the loop for hours. When my parents arrived to pick me up, my mother came into the home of her in-laws, watched me whiz by and had the horrified look … and then she spanked me.

As every grandmother knows, you stick up for your grandchildren: “But I said she could do it,” was Grandma’s response.

That’s the kind of grandmother she was. And she died … just when I was beginning to understand what life was all about. My grief began as an emptiness I had never experienced before. Everything changed. I was overcome with what I had lost.

On the day of the funeral I became very aware of GRIEF. The strongest, smartest man I knew sobbed. That was my dad. The 2 nd strongest, smartest man I knew fell apart. That was my grandpa. I remember saying to my brother: “This is real. This isn’t funny anymore. She’s not going to wake up. And I have never ever felt like this.” Nobody had prepared me for the death of my grandma.

The night before his death, Jesus tried to prepare the disciples for the loss they would experience. He explained that they would grieve, that they would grieve hard, but that their sadness would turn into joy.

Jesus parallels this with a birthing experience. During labor and delivery, there is pain, but after the baby is born, there is joy. On the arrival of a new baby, do we say to the mother: “oh, I’m so sorry ... I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” No, usually we say, with much joy, CONGRATULATIONS!

The disciples, they don’t get it. Many times, neither do we.

In our culture there seems to two extremes when it comes to grieving:

1. We don’t spend enough time processing grief, because we are all very familiar with the phrase: “get over it” … or
2. We turn grieving into a career, forgetting about the power of grace, the power of community … forgetting that after a night of despair, joy comes in the morning.

We can’t escape grief. At some time or another, we all face loss – either by circumstances of life, of by the death of those we love, or by friends or people we trust, or by a change in our environment, or even by our own stupidity and our own choices. When faced with loss, we grieve. And just because we make a commitment to follow Jesus doesn’t mean we receive an exemption from grief. That’s part of the plan … it’s a part of the journey.

After my grandma’s death, I decided that I wasn’t going to cry anymore … or better yet, I wasn’t going to spend my time focusing on loss, ever again. I would just avoid it, and I did, for a long time.

I specifically avoided Holy Week. It seems silly now, but it was very clear to me at the time that if I avoided it, I avoided the pain.

Holy Week was to be avoided at all costs because that’s quite possibly where I felt the greatest fear. Walking with Jesus to his death … ummm, not me. I’ll celebrate his grand entry into Jerusalem by waving my palms and then I’ll just come back next week for new life!

As an adult I entered ministry thinking that I might get away without officiating at any funerals. I even said out loud to a pastor I worked with: you take all the funerals, and I’ll take baptisms and weddings, okay? Okay. No, not okay.

My great plan to avoid pain and grief has all but evaporated. People I love have died. Bridges I worked very hard at building have buckled. Plans I made have changed. Promises I made have been broken. Systems I trusted have failed. I, along with many of you, have experienced winter and spring, birth and death, despair and hope, crucifixion and resurrection. I, along with many of you, have experienced faith in a God that won’t leave us alone, a God who continues to be active in our lives, a God who is constantly meddling in our affairs, a God who gave us a savior.

We all take a risk when it comes to loss because grieving can linger. There is no right or wrong way to grieve and everyone’s grieving schedule is different. For some, we may be so exhausted by grief, but we don’t let go it, for fear of losing even more. The final stage of grieving, as one travels through denial, anger, and depression is acceptance … not ever forgetting what we have lost, but accepting that the loss is real and that we’ve traveled through a significant journey.

If grieving is a concern for you, there are grief counselors and many, many resources I encourage you to look into.

Last August my husband’s grandmother died. Throughout the three days that we met to grieve as an extended family, my children were full of questions: Why did she die? How did she die? Is she going to come back? Do you miss her? Are you sad? It’s at times such as this that my children seem to find security in the stories, the family stories of life and death. I shared stories about a Grandma who let me roller skate in her living room. Brent shared stories about a Grandma who played a mean game of Sunday afternoon baseball. What a tremendous amount of joy and comfort this brought to our grieving family.

The Gospels declare that our Christian calling includes loving one another. If we choose to love we inevitably choose to lose, for loss will come and we will be faced with grief. Grieving is to feel the pain, acknowledging the shock, anger, outrage, guilt, sadness, pain, emptiness that we feel. Sometimes we have to experience suffering – sometimes we have to sit, surrounded by pain – to understand true joy.

In the 1870s Horatio Spafford had known peaceful and happy days as a successful attorney in Chicago. He was the father of four daughters, an active member of the Presbyterian church and was a friend and supporter of the evangelical leader of his day, Dwight L. Moody. The great Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out the family’s extensive real estate investments. When Moody left for Europe for an evangelical campaign, Spafford decided to lift the spirits of his family by taking them on a vacation to Europe to assist Moody in the meetings.

Before they departed, Spafford was detained by urgent business but sent his wife and daughters as scheduled, planning on joining them soon. Halfway across the Atlantic, the ship was struck by another vessel and sank in 12 minutes. All four of Spafford’s daughters were among the 226 who drowned. Mrs. Spafford however was saved. Horatio boarded a ship to carry him across the ocean to join his grieving wife. When the ship passed the placed where his precious children had met their death, Spafford experienced great sorrow, but also a sense of comfort because of his faith in God. And he wrote these words:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea-billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is well, with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.

Let it be well with our souls, even in those times of loss and grief.