The Fog of Grief

I haven’t written and published anything since the days following Ash’s funeral. (The weight even writing the latter half of that sentence still brings a flurry of emotions) The absence of writing out my thoughts is not for lack of content to document and record; it’s out of motivation.  I’ve said, often, to those who have asked ‘How I’m doing?’ that I’m putting one foot in front of another and letting the muscles move, but that one of the biggest struggles I’m finding in general is motivation to do anything outside of the bare necessity.  There is a bit of a vicious cycle involved with the lack of motivation and being productive in particular areas of life that require motivation. The lack of motivation produces anxiety about not getting things done and then not getting things done leads to this ‘sense of defeat’.  This was REALLY bad for the first couple of months following Ash’s death.  REALLY bad.  It does seem that these past few weeks have been a bit better, though, from a motivation perspective. 

Thankfully, God, in His graciousness, used those moments to teach me that things I thought were critical to operations aren’t as critical as I thought.  Being that summer was the first season we had to learn how to navigate, everything felt to be in a tailspin and there was no consistency or routine to grab hold of.  Perhaps, that’s exactly what we needed.  There were forced moments of having to rely on others (which, even still today, is insanely difficult for me).  There were points of figuring out how to manage work, the girls, general household chores, paperwork for Ash, closing/modifying accounts, attempting to clean up parts of the house, etc.  All of this was being done with muscle memory because of the fog of grief. 

I’m going to do my best to put a definition to this term.  Much like the fog of war, where you have such massive operations underway and communications aren’t always clear and direct… you have brass saying one thing, boots saying something different and a general lack of clarity on exactly which direction to proceed.  This leads to questionable field calls, casualties, blue on blue incidents, and a floundering of confidence in the mission objective.  I’d liken the fog of grief to be something similar.  These first few months have been rife with decisions that have been hastily thought through, conversations handled poorly, (numerous) parenting fails, scant work productivity and a general sense at the end of days/weeks of ‘how did I get here?’.  The atmosphere, around my head and my heart, has been so scattered and non-focused.  Much like looking through a camera lenses that’s pulled all the way back, the image of our daily life is blurred… though a picture can still be snapped, the clarity to understand what’s really going on is absent.  That’s what the fog of grief is at the moment, there is so much to handle/process/navigate and such a lack of focus/clarity on the roadmap that it creates this general sense of life moving forward and I haven’t the slightest idea around anything else.  What an opportunity to trust that the Lord is establishing my steps (even in the absence of an unclear way planned on my end) [Prov. 16:9]. 

A post would seem insufficient without an update on how we’re doing.  The long and short of it would be to say we have good days and not-as-good days.  I’d hesitate to say that we have bad days.  Any day we have breath in our lungs for an ‘I Love You’ and are able to give each other a hug, by its very definition is a good day.  There are certainly moments (more so as of late) that the girls are struggling with some of the emotions and putting words to it.  Sheesh, for that matter, there are days, more so as of late that I’m struggling to put words to feelings.  They do well during most of the day, but the night time is about 50/50 right now on whether or not they have some kind of outburst or their behavior changes in a negative direction.  Granted, school has started and they are generally exhausted (which is why it’s probably night time that these issues spike), but they have certainly had some tougher moments for sure.

You know, another funny thing about grief that I’m learning is that it doesn’t care about the time of day, the season, how much is ‘on the schedule’… when it wants to make itself known, it’s going to make itself known.  Something I’m also learning is that: yes, there are things that more easily trigger those moments than others, but aside from one instance, I don’t think I’ve pulled away from those triggers.  There is something both restorative and energizing about the back end of tough moments.  It provides an ounce of motivation and yields opportunities to see a bit higher view of the landscape we are living in.  By that, I mean, these intense moments of sadness (either for me or the girls) are really tough to process, but on the back end when we get our wits about us… those emotions have been freed.  We hug each other tighter.  It lets us feel less alone because we’re there with each other.

Much the same with grief.  The deeper the ache, the sharper the pain, the greater the love built in times before.  I’m sure this is a lifelong lesson to continue to unpack, but I’m thankful for being able to see it in this way.  There’s a peace that comes along with that.  Also, let’s talk about how both grief and <insert any other emotion> can co-exist.  It’s almost like grief is a new lens through which to look at other experiences and emotions in life.  Grief is ever present, though sometimes its more pervasive than others, but it’s always there.  As a result, it really just shapes other emotions that come.  Do we laugh around our house?  Absolutely.  Do we wrestle and horse around? Yes. Can we have fun and grieve simultaneously? 100%.  It’s a weird dynamic at times, but I also don’t think I gave this half a thought on what this would look like until Ash died.

Looking forward: I know there is still so much more to work through.  I desperately want a road map for this process (complete with milestones, checkpoints and a completion date) but that’s a fool’s dream.  Instead, I’ll just lean in to the fact that grief is another tool that God is using to make me look more like Jesus.  Instead of longing for the days when grief is no more or so minimal that it isn’t felt (which is unrealistic and as mentioned in the previous paragraph, technically impossible, since I’ll always love my bride), I’ll rest in the truth that as surely as the sun comes up, God will not let a moment go by that isn’t for His glory and my good [Rom. 8:28], up to and including intense moments of grief. 

For me personally, the depth of grief experienced is just an indication of the depth of love we have/had for Ash.  I remember likening this in a recent conversation to the same analogy as experiencing grace (though to not the same magnitude or significance).  For someone (like me) who has sinned greatly throughout life, not repented and generally lived like that of someone of the world… for them (like me) to then understood the gravity of sin and it’s damning effect, hear who Jesus is, see Christ for who He is, repent of their (my) sin and trust in Jesus moving forward… that person (me) goes from death to life.  They (I) lived in the valley and now are on the mountain top.  The greater the understanding of sin, the greater the experience of grace. [Continued growth in understanding Rom. 3:23-25]

I’m outlining a few topics in moments of downtime to write about.  Lots of things to document and unload.  Hopefully, with some discipline on my end, I’ll start to write with more regularity.  It’s the therapy I didn’t know I missed :)