When Grief Crashes In On Your Parade

Our summer vacation was bookended with grief. 

It was our annual trip to Colorado. A trip we’ve done for twenty-years, only the last couple years not all of my kids have made it because of summer school or a job. I wasn’t sure if they would all make it this year as my newly married son has a new job so we were uncertain whether he would get vacation. Thankfully last minute his boss graciously gave him the okay. All three of my kids plus their significant others were coming! I couldn’t be more excited to be together.

But then news came of our dying friend—a husband and dad of three young children. We met him through his wife who we have been close with since her days at Baylor when we did campus ministry. When they married my husband officiated, I read scripture, and our children were attendants. She named her first child “Hatton” after us. When my daughter married, she sang. This bit of background to say, we weren’t sure how the timing would work out, but we knew we had to get to North Carolina. And we did. 

We flew to North Carolina one day and to Colorado the next. We were weary, but grateful to have been there with her. Also grateful for a couple down days before our boys flew in for vacation. (Our daughter and her husband are working in Colorado this summer, so they were already there.) 

On the evening of July 3^rd one of our sons and his girlfriend arrived. Our other son and his wife had a flight delay and missed connection, forcing them to spend the night at an airport hotel in Houston. Finally, as the last of the 4^th of July parade floats were making their way down Main Street Aspen, they arrived. I was thrilled; eager to head back to the house to greet them. 

The very next minute came the news of the Texas Hill Country and Camp Mystic flooding.

The first text came from a close friend with a daughter and nieces at the camp—the camp I grew up going to. She said to “pray hard,” but the reality of the circumstances hadn’t yet sunk in. For one, I was at a parade, we had just visited with Kevin Costner (!), and I was excited about the day ahead with our family. But also, I was at Camp Mystic in 1987 when it flooded. My experience told me it would be okay. What happened this time was far different. We know now.

For the remainder of the trip, we carried on with our plans. We hiked, went to the theater, played games, celebrated the July birthday of one of my son’s, and laughed over meals. In between we checked our phones, read news reports, heard from friends. We were in disbelief and felt overwhelming grief for the many in our Dallas community and my hometown of Houston who were directly affected.

Back now, green ribbons dot our neighborhood in Dallas. Everyone knows someone whose child died, or daughter was there. Our second night back my husband and I spoke on a grief panel at church. I hadn’t even had time to myself process what has transpired. 

My friend lost her husband not even a month ago. Her grief was enough to hold. Still fresh now enveloped by the flood.

Holding in tandem all these experiences of a few short weeks is complicated. I don’t know how to feel. But when I tried to run and tried to write and tried to read, my body told me to stop and just be.

As a counselor I could say much about the process of grieving, specifically dual process grief in which we oscillate back and forth between sitting with the pain and moving forward. Feeling loss one moment and allowing for normalcy the next. Both are important. To deny either isn’t healthy, which means we shouldn’t suppress the sad or feel guilty over happiness.

In some way this feels like an echo of God’s word. 

On one hand, we know this world is broken, full of sin (Isaiah 24:5, 19) with trials guaranteed (John 16:33). But with the array of emotions that come with the sin and suffering the psalms show us we can go honestly to the Lord. We don’t have to sugarcoat, suppress or pretend. Rather God wants us to come to him in our distress (Psalm 18:6). He listens (Psalm 66:19-20), understands (Psalm 139:1-2), and draws near (Psalm 145:18).

And finally, we have hope in his eternal promise (I Peter 1:3-5). Our trials and tears are not the end of the story. “In theisworld you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (John 16:33).”

So, we live in this duality holding both in tandem. 

Sorrow and Joy. 

Death and Life. 

Grief and Hope.

But in the end, there will be no more tears, death shall be no more, neither will there be mourning. Those things will pass way. For he who sits on the throne is making all things new (Revelation 21:4-5).