by: Jenni Vinson
June 21, 2001
No matter what we go through, we can count on having some well-meaning person interject that we will get over the grief and the loss of whatever has happened “in time”. I too have said this to people in trying to comfort them. I want them to know that the grief they are experiencing will not always be so intense and that eventually their emotions will climb down off the ceiling and they will be able to see past this massive barrage of pain that has taken over their life.
When we see people emmersed in real grief, the type of grief that buckles people at the knees, it shocks us and we want to do or say something, anything to make things better for them. We strive to find the right words or the right look or the right touch that will make a difference at this crucial moment.
I am sure that this is how we came to adapt the concept of "time will heal". Enough of us thought that this was a fine thing to say, so now we all use it and we may even believe that the saying is true and that saying this to a person in crisis is enough.
The Holocaust survivors experienced an enormous amount of grief. They lost their homes and all their belongings and they were separated from their friends and families. They witnessed the systematic eradication of millions of their people.
That happened over 60 years ago and those who retell the stories of what occured in those days still display on their faces an intense grief and a depth of sorrow that conveys to us a small glimmer of what they endured. They have chosen to hold on to their grief in order to shock the world’s senses into realizing the horrors that were perpretated against them. Time has not healed them.
The men and women who came back from Viet Nam scarred by the sights, sounds and smells that assaulted their senses in a war in which they battled against an enemy that used their women and children as a front line against them, still, to this day struggle against the images that haunt them. Time has not healed them either.
Six years after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building the survivors and the friends and family of the 168 men, women and children who died, still look gaunt- like they just suffered the loss yesterday. Time seems to have stopped for them at the point of the blast. Dr. Joyce Brothers, reknown physchologist, writes that the truamatized human mind has a different chemical makeup than an unaltered mind. Of course it is different, it is clutterd with grief, sadness and even horror. Time alone cannot heal that.
This year marks the fourth anniversary since the GREAT FIRE of 1996, which I have come to call it. It has been four long years and I can still smell the smoke. I can close my eyes and my mind can vividly replays every instance of that day and of the many months to follow. Time has not quite done it for me.
I hope that as you read you will place this in your heart and remember my words next time you are in need of comforting someone. Please do not tell a person who has just suffered a loss how “lucky” they are. I will always be thankful that none of us nor any of our neighbors or the firemen were seriously hurt in the fire- but the grief I experienced at the loss of my home and all its contents is unspeakable and immeasurable.
To see my treasures in bits and piece- things that could never be replaced like the paper mache’ imprints of the kid’s hands and their baby blankets and their teddy bears and their first handwritings. Oscar’s beloved guitars were mangled and he lost his extensive baseball card collection and his silly Opus, the Penguin telephone. The books I read to the kids each night were destroyed. We found pieces of dolls and pictures and many things that were charred beyond recognition. I did not feel lucky at all.
But, I heard that so much from so many, that I assumed that I needed to just keep the grief to myself-- because I was expected to fell lucky. So I smiled as I sifted through the ashes that used to me my beloved things and I packed away the grief and hoped that time would heal it.
Time does not heal anything. It just clickes away at the days and the years while the things that we packed away sit inside of us and rot and fester and contaminate us. It is what we do as the time passes with the grief, the anger and the sorrow that makes the healing come about.
It is in the kindness of friends and family and sometimes even of strangers that we find the strength to begin the healing process-- the unpacking of the grief. Some of the grief we hold will remain. I cannot imagine ever being happy that the house burned down, nor do I ever want to stop missing my Huela. Those will remain as facts, but I would like to get to the point to where the grief does not keep me from moving forward. A few months ago, with the help of a friend, I realized that I had frozen my beloved Huela at the point of her death and was refusing to remember and honor her life. I was able to write about that and begin to unpack her and sometimes now I even laugh as she mulls around in my mind. She left so much inside of me and all around me.
Yesterday, I shared a picture of my dining room with a friend who lives in Canada and he pointed out how incomplete and rather boring the room looked. It really does look rather Amish. He was nice about it, he just didn’t think it was very creative. He encouraged me to decorate the bare walls. Last night I walked through the house and realized that I was still so grieved by the house fire that I found no joy in the house now.
I had my old things for decades and I loved them. I don’t recognize the things in this house as mine. I do not want new things. I want my old things back. That is not going to happen so it is time to move on. I felt an intense anger and then a peace and finally a determination as I faced the grief I had packed away-- this little piece of it. There is more to deal with.
If you know that you have one of these special packages inside of you- and you should know because you packed it put it there- there is no time like the present to open it up and start looking at it and making sense of it and throwing it out. Tell a friend about it and let them hold your hand while you go through it. God is always available as a close friend and He already knows all about what is in the package. Facing it is not easy, but coming to terms with it will give you peace.
We just never know how far an act or a word of kindness will go in helping the healing of a person and we are all healing from something! That is just the way life is. You are not the only one who has to deal with these things.
We should make it a point to be generous with our smiles, gentle touches to hands and shoulders, patience and especially with kind words of praise and encouragement because these are the tools God equipped us with for promoting healing among us. I do not believe He ever intended time to be a physician of any sort.