Someone asked me recently, “How did you deal with your grief?”

My mind immediately translated the question into the present tense, “How are you dealing with your grief?”

That phrasing strikes a truer chord in me, for the grief that descended a year and a half ago remains, the loss of my life partner keenly felt in small, everyday ways, and as I now make larger decisions without him by my side as before.

Yet as grief continues, I can see a difference in my grieving. I know that some have identified three stages of grief, others five, others seven, or some other number. I haven’t tried to fit my experience into any one particular grid. Instead I’ve let my grief and grieving unfold, and this is what I’ve noticed so far—not separate stages, but three overlapping movements.

Early Grief

In the shock of my husband’s sudden passing, I spent time alone and time with others. I prayed, I journaled, I cried, I listened to his collection of ’80s music. I got outside every day, often taking walks with friends or family members. Some days I was on the phone for three hours and more—talking with one or more of my sisters and with friends who would call. But when the calls seemed too much, I let them go to voice mail and returned them the next day or days after.

I did the essentials—eating, sleeping, letting people know. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and in keeping with my husband’s wishes, there was no in-person funeral, so I found other ways to mark his passing and for people to say goodbye. I made arrangements for an online tribute with memories from Gary’s two brothers and one of his closest friends. I encouraged people to read and add to the tribute and to celebrate his life by giving blood, encouraging a health care worker, doing some other deliberate act of kindness, or giving to a charity of their choice.

Middle Grief

I continued to focus on the essentials and let most other things go. When I didn’t feel like answering the phone, I didn’t. When I received dinner invitations and didn’t feel like going, I politely declined. When I was asked, could you _______, or what do you think about _______, I would most often say, “I can’t even think about that until after Easter.” Early on, I had decided on a deliberate time of mourning until Easter to give myself room to grieve. But even after Easter and whenever I felt unsettled, I would find myself saying, “I can’t even think about that now.”

I started doing some of the tasks on the various lists given to me by the hospital social worker and funeral home. I started speaking again for my church, but only online. I taught a Zoom course that I had committed to months earlier, but postponed the start by an extra week. I completed a book of sermons that I had committed to before my husband’s death. And in between those times of productivity, I spent hours lying on the couch binge watching Law and Order and other dvd’s from my husband’s collection—tv shows instead of movies that required a longer attention span, plots and problems that resolved in an hour instead of more difficult, ongoing situations that were too much like real life.

Present Grief

Some days I’m back in early grief or somewhere in the middle. I’m still not finished with all the tasks listed by the hospital social worker and funeral home, but in my view at least, the more time-sensitive ones are done. I still watch dvds to de-stress, although I’ve added the occasional movie or documentary alongside the scripted tv shows. I’ve replied to all the cards and other messages of sympathy—not because that appears on some list (it doesn’t), but because I wanted to respond to the kindnesses shown to me. I’ve started sorting through my husband’s papers—shredding class lists and other papers that could have been shredded years ago, recycling his hand-written notes from university, setting aside his unpublished writing to publish as an ebook or in some other form some day.

I’m back to speaking in person. I’ve taken on new responsibilities like editing Rejoice! magazine. I went with a friend to my first in-person concert since before the pandemic and since my husband died. I went to a large gathering on his side of the family to celebrate a nephew’s engagement. Two weeks ago, I spoke at my first in-person funeral since before the pandemic and since Gary—in my former church, for a young man who lost his life from a drug overdose, whom I had known since he was a child running into my church office to visit me. One of the slides during the memorial showed him at home as a preschooler with his sister, with my husband and me beside them. Seeing it added another layer of emotion to an already emotional service, but in a way it seemed like a tribute to Gary too, how we were such partners in life and ministry.

So this is how I have been—and am—dealing with my grief. Still finding my way forward on unsteady feet. Still leaning on God. Still grateful for the support of family, friends, and faith community. Thank you, dear readers, for being part of that wide circle of support. May you also find the support you need in whatever griefs you carry. May God be with you and bear you up.

Writing/Reflection Prompt: In what way(s) do you identify with what I think of as early, middle, and present grief?

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