Good grief?

Good grief! This year I was a witness to grieving that was “good.”

My dear friend’s husband died. He had had a cardiac arrest 15 years before and was without oxygen for a while. She had become his caregiver – driver, bookkeeper, arranger, advocate, decider, bather, dresser, wheelchair pusher, daily laundress. Her attitude was that this is what she signed up for 50 years ago.

After her husband’s death, she quilted a lovely box for the cremains. She cried some, made hundreds of mementos from paper cranes for the visitors, cried more, wrote the remembrance biography and arranged for the meal. She said she had time throughout the years to celebrate what they did have and to grieve the losses as they came along. Good grief!

“We voice our sorrow, thanking God for our loved one(s), and trusting in God’s promise at baptism that we are claimed by Christ forever. We rest in the sure hope of our resurrection.” (Adapted from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 279.)
When have you experienced “good grief?”

This message is excerpted from “When have you experienced good grief?” by Barbara Miller from the November 5, 2018, blog of the Women of the ELCA.

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