Tears With Purpose
It was late in the evening on November 18, 2011. Sitting on a nursing home bed in my hometown, I held my Mama as she took her last breath. I felt a rush of peace move through me. A peace that would sustain me just long enough to make it through the day after her memorial service, a celebration of life we planned for an exact week later- on her birthday. That year, she spent her 48th birthday with Jesus…
I would spend the next week going through the motions, starting the process of fulfilling her last wishes, and feeling guilty as I wondered why I couldn’t cry. It wasn’t too far into the new year that my grief began to shift. I suddenly saw her features in the faces of strangers and heard her laughter at the center of my own. I felt her standing beside me as I folded laundry, and I frequently prayed for God to forgive me for anything I had ever done to hurt her.
For days, months, and years I wept. I wept at every “first” without her. I would think to call her, only to remember seconds later that she wouldn’t be there to pick up. Sometimes, I wore her hospital socks to bed, looked through old photos with my sisters on holidays, counted the hundreds of business cards she collected and made scrapbooks of her recipes. I avoided going to church on Mother’s Day, and in many ways, I avoided moving forward altogether. I stood still, holding onto the most challenging parts of our relationship, and I wept…sometimes for hours at a time.
It would be ten years before I experienced freedom from the parts of my grief that I had the most difficulty navigating. Freedom that gave my grief real purpose.
In November of this past year, I received a text with the news of the death of a woman I had never met. Although I didn’t know the woman, she was the mother of someone I did know. So, out of respect, I immediately felt compelled to attend the funeral service.
Someone I work with also reached out to me when receiving the news that day. We talked about how difficult it can be to attend a funeral when you’ve experienced the same loss. We also shared some of our own experiences with the grief process. And by the end of the conversation, I surprised myself with a statement I made, declaring the immense amount of healing one could gain when meeting another where they are in their grief. It wasn’t until later that I realized what an actual turning point that conversation and statement were in my grief process.
Several days later, I made the 45-minute drive to the church where the service was held. Working from home now, I’m not in the car as much as I used to be. The solitude during my drive felt like a gift that day. I left my house early so I could take my time, and about 20 minutes into my drive, I heard a devotion on the radio station I was listening to. As the host quoted the scripture John 11:35, my surroundings seemed to melt away, sort of like when you arrive somewhere, and you don’t remember how you got there.
As I listened to the message, I felt overwhelmed by the thought of Jesus empathetically weeping with those around him. I thought of how the Bible says, “He was deeply moved in spirit” …and I was reminded of the love he has for us when we weep. A love that never waivers and never gives up on us. A love that heals us from the inside out.
If you know me, you know this meant me ugly crying the rest of the way to the funeral. And, of course, that meant needing to clean up my face and get myself together quickly as I pulled into the church parking lot. I looked in my rearview mirror to see how bad the red nose and smudged mascara were…well, I guess you could say, it just was what it was at that point. That red nose and smudged mascara wouldn’t hold a candle to what was going to happen over the next hour.
I arrived in time to speak with the individual whose mother had died, and the look on her face told me she was not only surprised to see me but also how deeply she appreciated the gesture of me being there. After speaking with her, I found a seat and quietly waited for the service to begin. While waiting, I observed her as she made sure things were ready for the service and helped friends, and other family members get to where they needed to be. My assumptions led me to believe I observed a strong, pulled-together woman going through the motions just as I had ten years before.
The service began, and I listened to the most moving stories and testimonies from people who had known and loved the woman being honored that day. There were thoughtful letters read, love poured out, and memory after memory of a beautiful legacy left by a sweet soul. I sat there in awe of this precious woman I never got to meet. And I wondered what her relationship was like with her daughter.
The service transitioned as the pastor began sharing the message he prepared from the book of John. A message of compassion, love, and empathy. For the second time that day, I heard the Lord speak directly to me through the words, “Jesus wept.”. Tears of compassion ran uncontrollably down my face as I watched the daughter on the front row tremble as she wept over the death of her mother.
My tears changed that day, as did the aching in my heart. My experience with grief now had much more to do with reaching out rather than reaching in. That day my tears weren’t about me at all.
For me, grieving a relationship with my mother while she was still present was just as difficult as grieving her death. I think that’s one of the reasons I couldn’t cry the week between her passing and her memorial service. We had lived through seasons for which mental and physical sickness had taken its toll- on both of us. And those seasons had been exhausting.
Watching my mother’s body decline was like watching a plant that needed water wilt away in fast forward. The last three days spent in the hospital were the first time I experienced my mother not seeking control of everything around her. She surrendered it all, saying she was ready to go home.
Her surrender gave me a new lens for our relationship. Her surrender meant allowing me to love and care for her without the challenges of her desperate need for control. It also provided me with perspective on her will to survive.
I began to see her as a vulnerable child that endured multiple forms of abuse and trauma early in her life. The child that chose life for me, at just 16 years old. I saw her for the child of God that she was. My compassion and empathy grew tremendously as she prepared for her last days on this side of Heaven.
Jesus wept with me as I grieved the relationship I desperately wanted to have with my mother- before and after her death. In that weeping, he healed the cracks and broken spaces in my heart. My acceptance and patience in his process have helped me recognize purpose in the most unexpected places. Places that require meeting others where they are in their grief, rather than making their loss about myself.
I find that when I am willing to stand on the outside of my grief, viewing another’s life through a lens of compassion, I receive the continuous gift of healing. Every time I choose to focus on the beautiful parts of my and my mother’s relationship, I embrace the gift of joy. I don’t deny the difficult times existed, but I do recognize my choice to celebrate her life serves as a spiritual platform that the Lord uses to minister to others.
Jesus has wept with me and for me in every stage of my grief. Not over the circumstances themselves, but to take on the burdens I bared in my heart. And now, ten years after my mother’s death, the healing process finally means my tears serve a purpose—a purpose that provides me with the freedom to minister. A freedom used to serve others through empathy and compassion, just as he does for me.
