We Are Living Epistles

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Both the boys and I seem to be doing ok today. It seems the last wave kind of hit us all at the same time. Right after the South Africa memorial service for my wife, their mother, I caught whatever it was they currently have, and now we’re all under the weather. So physically, we’re not 100%, but in terms of grieving, we’re in a calm place at the moment. I was even watching them play and be silly with each other for the first time since getting the news about their mom.

While we’re doing ok right now, I want to share a principle that I’ve always been taught by my parents, and have always believed in, but now more than ever, has been my saving grace.

You have to feel everything that you’re feeling.

Every emotion that comes through you in a time of intense mourning and grieving are real; whether or not in hindsight you realize some of those feelings weren’t “right.” If you’re feeling it, it’s real. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 talks about how we should not mourn like people with no hope, and that is absolutely true. It doesn’t say we shouldn’t mourn, for mourning is all throughout the bible. All of Egypt mourned when Joseph’s father Jacob died, and they mourned for 70 days. David tore his clothes and mourned at the death of his predecessor, King Saul. Jesus, just before raising Lazarus from the dead mourned at his death.

It has only been 3 weeks since my wife died, so there is a big part of all of us that is still in shock, but in this grief period, I’ve been deeply sad, intensely angry, regretful, devastated, in disbelief, shiftless, scared for the future, scared that maybe something about this was my fault, etc.

You can look at those things and immediately respond with “no, no, you can’t blame yourself,” and I appreciate that. But that is not my point right now.

My point is that, if you cannot be completely open and honest with anyone else about where you are emotionally, be honest with G-d. Go into your room or prayer closet, close the door, and let it all out. Tell G-d how you feel, and every single emotion running through you, no matter how ugly it is. You’re feeling it anyway, so it’s inside of you. Pretending it isn’t there will only corrode you from the inside out.

As some of you may know already, my wife never made it back to North Carolina where we live. She and my brother in-law had landed in Newark where she passed out and was rushed to the hospital. Well, her last doctor's appointment before that was in South Africa and she texted me right after to give me an update. Her doctor out there gave her a bunch of different meds to take at different times for different things that she seemed to have. It wasn’t just lupus that she had, and he was concerned.

My wife shared with me that her doctor had her hooked up to a machine that monitored her internal responses to things that he would bring up and ask her about. He noticed that for most topics he’d bring up to her, her bodily stress levels were literally off the charts. The problem was that her mind stress levels were unfazed.

She said that there were such intense responses from her body on certain questions, the doctor would check in with her, asking if she was ok or if she was angry, as you’ll see as you continue reading. Her doctor was telling her that she has been able to separate her mind from what her body is feeling so well, that it has worn her body down. So in addition to the medication, he said it was important that she worked through some of the topics he raised that caused her body so much stress.

She then recalled conversations that she and I had about exactly this, except I’m not a doctor, so me telling her that it seems as though there is a lot taking a toll on her body was simply a loving spousal observation. When she texted me and recalled those conversations, she said “you were right.”

Jokes about getting one's wife to admit her husband was right aside, that text was a breath of fresh air to me. She didn’t think I was wrong when we’d discuss together, she just didn’t think it was as big an issue as I, and a couple of her best friends were making it out to be.

Then she texted me something that I come back to regularly as a reminder of what I and our children meant to her in life.

None of us knew what would happen just two weeks later, or that this text would be one of the last ones I would receive from her.

But good G-d Almighty, I’m so glad she sent it.

Now, when my mind starts to wander, I eventually come back to this.

But I can’t get to that place of resolution if I am lying to myself about how I am really feeling. I can’t have peace if I ignore the war going on between my mind and my soul. I can’t move forward in the grieving process if I stop myself from acknowledging how badly I’m hurting. My wife struggled a lot with that, and just in the last year of her life, we were only beginning to scratch the surface.

Grief is an abyss. Again, today, the boys and I seem to be doing ok. Yesterday, landing in Charlotte was overwhelming. Tomorrow may be excruciating. Knowing that is scary. But it does us no good at all to keep it inside. That’s the lesson I want to share with all of you now. My wife was more than an amazing woman; and we will continue to see that in the coming weeks. You google her name, and you’ll see South Africa, Israeli, and American papers honoring her for all of the work she did. She was an incredible wife to me, and an incredible mother to our boys. My family, and quite possibly millions of others are mourning for her.

But as I said in my eulogy of her in Israel, there is wisdom in this for all of us. She’s with the Lord now with no more pain, and will remain there forever. For the rest of us here, there are gems here for us. We’d be foolish to miss them.

My wife was very good at delaying her own emotions to get the job done. Though that is not a bad trait to have in the short term, and one I quite frankly think too many lack, it is not healthy in the long term. Finally letting go and breaking down after a very crucial project is finished is one thing. Finishing the crucial project and then moving on to the next one, almost forgetting about whatever traumatic event happened is something else entirely.

If you’re reading this, and feel that you identify with my late wife in these ways, consider this a wake up call.

Feel everything that you’re feeling. Be honest with G-d and yourself.

In this ugly process, that is what carries me through.