Grief
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Half of Me is With You
You are
My Heart and my Soul
The most Happiness I’ve ever known
The greatest Gift I have received
My Joy and my Song
A Love so Fierce I didn’t believe it could be real
A Bond so Strong I can feel you in my every cell
Your Life runs through my Veins
Half of me is with You
I thought I had known what it meant to love
I thought I knew the feeling of being alive
Instead I found that all in you~~~
Today is Caleb’s birthday. He would have been 36. To honor him, I hiked to his favorite spot in the mountains where we have some beautiful memories right around his birthday a couple years ago. I don’t know how I will commemorate his birthday every year, but I know I will always do something. I’m taking this lifelong grief journey one day at a time.
I’m moving forward but never “moving on”.
He is forever my lover and soulmate. I will share my life with and lean on people who understand that, but no love can ever replace him.
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Practicing Resurrection
As a person with a very painful church history and a recent death I will forever grapple with – “Resurrection Sunday” is complicated.
The Evangelical Church I was raised in never really celebrated resurrection, instead they used Easter as a conversion opportunity – accosting the congregation with promotions and guilt trips for weeks beforehand about inviting the “unsaved” to church.
So it came as a surprise to me when I was college-aged and learned from a progressive Christian that Resurrection Sunday was the most important Christian holiday. I was fascinated and began reading up on it and immersing myself. About a year later I had the beautiful opportunity of attending an Easter Service at a progressive mainline church that followed the global church liturgical calendar.
There I was exposed to progressive Christian theologians for the first time who rightly spoke out that Resurrection Sunday should be less about theology or an alleged historical event, but rather about a lifestyle of bringing life into dead places in every way possible.
I learned about how in the ancient world resurrection wasn’t understood as just one person coming back to life, but rather about making life available for all people. I came to see the story of Jesus’ resurrection as a reminder of the possibility of our own and our responsibility to bring life to our own worlds.
I began to commemorate Easter each year by celebrating the idea of new life both physically and spiritually and committing to being an avenue through which that life could come. I grew comfortable “worrying less about what some people say they believe happened 2,000 years ago and more about if we are living as if resurrection still happens.” (Carl Gregg, 1)
I discovered and was inspired by theologians and activists like Saint Francis, Barbara Brown Taylor, Shane Claiborne and Megan McKenna.
Shane Claiborne greatly impacted me with his work through The Simple Way – an intentional living community in the poorest neighborhoods of Philadelphia. I read about their cooperative projects planting gardens in the concrete jungles for children who had easier access to guns than salads. They called it “practicing resurrection”.
Claiborne says: “When a kid pulls a carrot out of the ground for the first time it is magical. The more they see things that are alive, the more filled with wonder they become at the God who made all this wild and wonderful stuff like fireflies and butterflies, hummingbirds and earthworms – and you and me. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that there is a beautiful God when so much of what you see is ugly. It’s hard to believe in a God that is a lover of life when there is so much death and decay and abandonment. So we talk a lot these days about “practicing resurrection” — by making ugly things beautiful… and turning vacant lots into gardens… and loving people back to life. Not a bad encore after Easter here. After all, resurrection is something we get to do every day. Every day is Easter. We are resurrection people.” (2)
Tears came to my eyes when I first read Megan McKenna’s story: “Once in a parish mission when I was studying this scripture (Luke 7: 11-17) with a large group, someone called out harshly, ‘Have you ever brought someone back from the dead?’
“My response was ‘Yes.’ I went on to say, ‘Every time I bring hope into a situation, every time I bring joy that shatters despair, every time I forgive others and give them back dignity and the possibility of a future with me and others in the community, every time I listen to others and affirm them and their life, every time I speak the truth in public, every time I confront injustice — yes — I bring people back from the dead.’ ” (3)
Her words prompted reflection on all the ways I had been brought back from the dead – how being part of radically accepting Christian communities breathed life into the dark and dead places in my heart left there by abusive fundamentalist churches. How the people who believed in me when no one else did might have actually physically saved my life. I thought about the people who lent me money and provided me a place to live when I escaped my abusive marriage. I thought about the many others in my community with similar stories. We were dead people walking and living again and like babies, trying to get used to this strange new ability to move and jump and breathe and see and understand. It’s exhilarating and mind boggling and contagious and messy all at the same time.
For about seven years I was very passionate about resurrection being the center of my faith, and probably rightly so. I became keenly aware of the implications that resurrection had for justice in our communities, and that for resurrection to be possible, everyone had to have equal access to it – opportunities for education and housing and sustenance and meaningful work were the building blocks of resurrection without which it would come crumbing down. Resurrection wasn’t possible when some people were pushed to the margins because of their gender or racial identity. Resurrection didn’t exist where merely a verbal message of hope was preached to people on the verge of eviction or struggling to buy food or pay for medical bills. Resurrection was void without the liberation of us all.
I took seriously the words of Barbara Brown Taylor that “new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” (4) I saw it as my calling to move closer to the margins, to look into forgotten faces and be present in unpleasant places because that is where resurrection is born – and it isn’t possible without the deliverance of the most vulnerable and oppressed.A few months after a harrowing escape from abuse and starting my life over from scratch, the upcoming Easter holiday felt more significant than ever. I wrote a progressive Easter liturgy and then used it to lead a reflective gathering with my friends and roommates in my overcrowded apartment I stayed in for six months following my divorce. The group of us came together to celebrate that death itself was dying, as is poetically described in Isaiah 25 saying God will “destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples” and “swallow up death forever”. We celebrated where each of us saw resurrection in our own lives and mourned where we were still waiting for it. We solemnly recognized that we still lived in a world that didn’t look much like resurrection and that we saw a lot of hell all around us. We acknowledged that the church wasn’t doing its job and that our calling was to bring heaven to earth, starting with us.
The next year I leaned fully into my tiny progressive church community that did life together more as a family than as a traditional church. During that time I co-founded an intentional living space with my neighbors-turned-friends in my downtown apartment complex. I dedicated most of my free time each week to organizing gatherings and neighborhood potlucks, tending to the community garden, and running programs we had set up for meal-sharing and car-sharing.
Before grief, I might have believed I had accomplished resurrection or that practicing it meant there could always be light found in the darkness, that any situation could be redeemed.
And then, only a month before Easter, my life came tumbling down. The person who mattered the most to me was snatched from this life in an instant. The person who had brought the most healing and resurrection to my own life, suddenly needed resurrection and didn’t get it. I could have given up anything else and still been okay as long as we had each other – but this, this was too much. After a number of years focused on reclaiming Resurrection from Evangelicals and making it a foundational part of my radical faith, this last year when Easter rolled around – I ignored it. I hated it. Resurrection didn’t happen for me or for the person I felt deserved it the most. What good is resurrection if it doesn’t, you know, resurrect somebody?
Before grief I would have expected to look for a silver lining in this terrible time: maybe the way people came together in the aftermath of the tragedy, or the growth I experienced surviving the unthinkable, my increased empathy and understanding. But no, Caleb’s life was not a problem, he didn’t have to die for good things to happen. There is no silver lining. Death is always irrevocably bad.
But maybe this is what makes resurrection so important.
Death is the greatest travesty and fighting death should be our most driving purpose.
Researching cures for cancer, that is resurrection work. Raising money for that research is resurrection work. Protesting wars is resurrection work, designing safer vehicles is resurrection work. Rebuilding after hurricanes, preserving history, passing environmentally clean legislation – those endeavors are resurrection work. Funding schools and hospitals and government assistance programs, that is resurrection work. Equity work is resurrection work – making sure that life is equally livable for everyone. Supporting the person who is suffering so much emotionally or physically that death actually seems like a better option – that is resurrection work.
Admittedly, my faith has evolved drastically in the fallout after Caleb’s death. My spirituality has shifted more and more toward mysticism and looks less recognizably Christian, although Christ and the ancient Christian tradition still inspire me. I believe in an afterlife – more now than I did before. I’ve had experiences I can’t ignore. But ironically, resurrection isn’t about life after death; resurrection is about protecting this one, and that’s something evangelicals get wrong. We can’t ignore the suffering of those around us and preach about a heaven far off for another place and time and say we are resurrection people. Resurrection people bring heaven to earth, because death is the ultimate atrocity.
As resurrection people our purpose is to “get in the way of death”, to stop it, to slow it down, to put up as many obstacles in front of death as possible. (Chris Gerhz, 5)The death of hope, the death of opportunities, the death of relationships, innocence, equality, and certainly the death of our bodies – none of it is good and none of it is okay. That is why resurrection work is the most important work, and that is why life is sacred.
~~~1 Carl Gregg via Patheos: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2012/03/practice-resurrection-progressive-christian-theology-for-easter
2 Shane Claiborne via HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/practicing-resurrection-t_b_1443621
3 Megan McKenna, from her book Not Counting Women and Children: Neglected Stories from the Bible
4 Barbara Brown Taylor, from her book Learning to Walk in the Dark
5 Christ Gerhz via his blog, The Pietist Schoolman https://pietistschoolman.com/2017/05/14/history-practice-resurrection/
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More than Sadness
Grief is more than sadness.
Grief is loving a person so much you would give up your life for them in an instant, but never being given the option.Grief is grappling with the fact that you couldn’t protect them and wondering if you were good enough to be what they deserved.
Grief is more than sadness – it’s the trauma of the world suddenly looking darker and scarier and wildly unpredictable.
It’s the instability of a shifting identity, strained finances, impossible decisions, rebuilding your life from scratch and wrestling with existential questions that never mattered before. What happens after death? Why am I here and they are not? What’s the purpose of it all?Grief is more than sadness; it’s suddenly getting lost on a road you’ve driven a million times. It’s being exhausted at simple tasks like cooking a meal or taking out the trash. It’s feeling spacey and forgetful and irritable at everything. It’s being scatterbrained and disorganized and shaking your head and saying “This isn’t me! I’m not like this! Why am I like this?”
It’s wondering if your way of grieving is normal. Its wondering if anything will ever be normal again.Grief is all the unexpected little day to day differences you couldn’t have prepared for. Switching over to saying “I” instead of “we” and using past tense verbs. It’s finding a piece of their clothing mixed in with your laundry and realizing it’s probably the last time. It’s being nervous about using items they gifted you in case they wear out. It’s having inside jokes no one else understands anymore and holding sacred moments in time that no other living person is witness to. Grief is being madly in love with someone you can’t feel or touch or see. It’s realizing there were future human beings who will never exist now because you didn’t get to have children together.
Grief is more than sadness. It’s sometimes feeling at peace and then instantly feeling guilty for it. It’s coming to a place of acceptance for a moment and then wondering if you’ve betrayed your person.
Grief is having a person who is your entire world but being forced to live as though they’re not. Grief is walking into a room existing as half of a whole but knowing others only see one person. It’s feeling like they can’t fully know you without knowing your person too, but they never will.
Grief is living with an itch that can’t ever be scratched; a constant longing never fulfilled. Grief is wondering how you can possibly survive the next 50 years. It is the horrifying realization of how few of your years will have been shared with them by time you’re old.
Grief is more than sadness – it’s having to speak for your person and represent them and wondering if you are doing them justice. Its needing to make team decisions alone. It’s wondering which of your shared dreams to pursue.Grief is realizing how much you loved their mind – their deep thoughts and intelligent ideas – wanting to learn from them, but the library burned down.
Grief isn’t just sadness – it’s bravery. It’s waking up every morning and choosing to live in a world devoid of the person who means the most to you. It’s choosing to keep going when you want to join them.
Grief isn’t just the initial loss – it’s all the secondary losses; a domino effect. Its your declining mental health and crumbling optimism; your now-jaded outlook. Its friendships that are lost when people feel too awkward around your grief. Its a hobby you used to love that feels ruined now with no one to share it with and favorite places that just aren’t fun to visit anymore.
Grief is a permanent part of you, a jagged scar, a broken bone that wasn’t set right.Grief is every happy moment forever penetrated by a little jab of sadness.
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Traumaversary
One year today.
Before I was a grieving person I didn’t understand the experience of a “traumaversary”. I figured on days that marked a loss, the grieving person was sad and remembering it more because of what day it was.
I didn’t realize it’s more than sadness. I didn’t understand there’s really no such thing as “remembering it”, because you never forget. It’s not a thought you have. It’s a constant reality. It’s a gaping hole woven into the fabric of your being. It’s part of who you are now.
I didn’t know when a traumaversary comes around, especially the first one, both the brain and body are reliving the initial loss. In a lot of ways the body thinks it’s happening all over again.
I didn’t understand a traumaversary isn’t just a day, but it’s the days and weeks and even months leading up to it. I had no clue a grieving person’s body feels on edge, waiting for the unthinkable. I didn’t know its like reliving the past while getting a window into the hellish future. I was unaware it feels like knowing what will happen on that day but being powerless to stop it. I had no idea a traumaversary isn’t just a day.I didn’t realize a traumaversary isn’t just a day, or the days before it – it’s the days and weeks and even months following after it too. I had no clue following a traumaversary a grieving person’s body relives those early days of grief, struggling to survive the unsurvivable. I didn’t know a grieving person’s mind goes through the cycles again of trying to reorient itself to its new damned existence. I was unaware it feels like reliving the past while knowing experientially just how utterly devastating the future is.
Now I know that at the one year mark there is a jarring realization that you can no longer say “this time last year” when referring to special moments with your person. It’s the traumatic reality that linear time is dragging you further and further away from their touch, their voice, their smell. A traumaversary isn’t just a testament to what happened in the past – it’s proof the world keeps moving after your world ended. It’s tangible evidence you are still here and they are not. It’s the sometimes paralyzing fear that your memories will fade. It’s the terror of recognizing that shared moments with your person are taking up a smaller and smaller piece of the pie of your life. Its the suffocating epiphany that the percentage of your life spent with your person is shrinking with each passing millisecond. It’s wondering what new memories would have been made by now if things had been different, what they would be doing now, who they would be.
I’m finding now that a traumaversary isn’t grieving only the initial loss. It’s grieving a month, or six months, a year or many years worth of missed memories, empty holidays, unfulfilled dreams, lonely adventures, reaching for shared goals alone.I’ve learned now that you should be gentle with yourself on traumaversaries, whether it marks a loss or abuse or some other terrifying event. Be gentle with yourself because your nervous system is terrified. Be gentle with yourself because your body is reliving something it didn’t think it could live through. Be gentle with yourself because a traumaversary isn’t just a day.
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Stories of Legacy
American culture is very grief illiterate. Our culture wants positivity and silver linings. It doesn’t want to accept the permanence of grief. Sometimes people want me to hurry up and get better. They wonder how long it’s going to take. They hope once I’m “fixed” they don’t have to be uncomfortable anymore or wonder what to say. But grief is lifelong. Grief changes with time and it gets a little easier to live with but it never goes away.
My life will forever be plagued with the yearning for Caleb, a searing hole in my heart. Even when I am happy, I will always be a little sad. For the rest of my life. This isn’t me being negative, its just how it is. But our culture doesn’t like that.
I know people who refuse to keep pictures up of Caleb because to them it feels awkward or they think its a reminder only of his death. I’ve had someone try to change the subject when I mention Caleb. Some people stopped saying his name as if he didn’t exist. Friends have abruptly exited my life in painful ways because they think I’m a liability to their carefree happiness when I’m around. Sometimes I’m treated like a walking disease as if the tragedy is contagious.
I remember before I was a grieving person, I didn’t feel comfortable with grief either. I would scroll past grief posts quickly on the internet and sometimes I even felt annoyed at how much some people talked about it. Sometimes I thought they were attention-seeking or trying to push an understanding of their experience on unassuming passersby. So I get it. But its still harmful and its important to educate ourselves on grief. It’s important to ask questions “What do you need right now?” “How would you like me to support you?” and also to just listen. You don’t have to have the right words to say. Sometimes its better not to, but to just be there. Let the grieving person feel whatever they feel. Don’t try to fix it. Let them talk about their person. Ask about their person. Talk about their person like you would if they were still here. Don’t be afraid of “reminding” the grieving person of their grief. That’s not possible because it’s an ever-present reality. Often we are excited to talk about the person we love so much. It is a way for us to keep loving them, to keep interacting with their life and to honor them.
In that vein, I want to share here what I said at Caleb’s memorial service.
“Loving Caleb was the greatest gift I have ever received.
Something I deeply admired about Caleb was that if he was going to do something at all – he would do it all the way. A good example of that is his love for me.
When Caleb first met me, he fell for me hard – and I hardcore friend-zoned him. But Caleb was very persistent (in respectful ways). Finally after 8 months, I decided to give us a chance, and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
Caleb was all in in our relationship. He there for me, heart and soul. Early on I told him I had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I warned him it would be difficult at times. It’s hard supporting someone with PTSD, but Caleb always believed in me and he saw past my diagnosis. He saw my potential, my character, my heart. He would tell me all the time “You’re going to get better, the PTSD isn’t you. No matter how hard it gets, I’m going to be there for you.” Whenever we would notice progress with my mental health, he would get this huge grin and tell me “Seeeee, I told you you would get better!” He was so proud of me.
Back before we were even dating, I was leading a PTSD support group that met in my home, and Caleb showed up to the first meeting – Even though Caleb doesn’t have PTSD. As we went around the introduction circle sharing why were were interested in the group, Caleb said “I have someone in my life whom I care about deeply who has PTSD, and I want to learn everything I can about it so I can support them better.” He meant me. He showed up faithfully every week.
When Caleb first discovered that he could give me CBD for my anxiety and that it actually worked, he was so happy he cried. Helping me quickly became one of the most important things to him – a life calling, even.
Caleb and I were inseparable from the first day we started hanging out – I went from being about 15 minutes early to everything to about 20-30 minutes late to my frequent community events, because he and I were trying to squeeze in time together. Hilariously, people definitely started to notice and knew what was up. But we didn’t care; we only wanted to never be apart.
Once when we were just friends, Caleb and I were sitting on the roof of a building downtown that we had climbed up, being the adventurous daredevils we were. We were watching the lights sparkling on the water and the stars coming out. I had been going through a particularly rough patch with my mental health and I was feeling frightened that if I got too close to the edge of the building I might throw myself off of it. I had been feeling very unstable and being too close to any danger triggered something in me. He asked me if I could pinpoint where that urge was coming from, and I said “I just don’t think anyone loves me, like really loves me.” Caleb got this look on his face where he seemed deeply moved. He put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me in a little so I was looking right at his face. He said slowly, emphasizing each word “Sarah. I. Love. You.” He repeated it and said “I don’t mean that like I just want to date you, I really love you. Even if no one else does.” At that point, I wasn’t ready to say it back to him, even though he wasn’t saying it in a romantic way. But I felt seen. I felt safe. Caleb helped me see my own value that day. I went through some very dark times and I firmly believe that Caleb saved my life.On another particularly difficult day mental health day, Caleb heard I was struggling with the will to live and he immediately came to get me. Caleb took me for a little walk on the landing at the downtown waterfront. He held my hand and told me stories about his childhood. He pointed out the boats and sparkling waves and complained about the noisy seagulls. He was tender with me, telling me much he loved me, and calling me his Sarah Bear. He spoon-fed me chocolate ice cream, made me laugh and helped me see the beauty of life that day. Caleb gave me hope; he gently pulled me back from the precipice just by being himself.
Whenever I would get depressed Caleb assured me it would be okay with such a steadfastness that grounded me. When the world seemed like such a dangerous and negative place he helped me see the beauty of life. When I felt insecure, Caleb would stroke my hair and my face and tell me “I love you, I’ll protect you, I’ll be patient with you, I’m committed to you …” he would repeat that sentence over and over until I felt calm. He was so healing to me. Even just his touch – laying a hand on my neck or my shoulders, my muscles would immediately relax and I could feel the trauma and the negative energy that was trapped in my body start to dissipate. It was as if his hand could literally pull it out of my body.
When we first met, Caleb and I viewed the world pretty differently. We had the same values but different approaches. Over time we learned from each other and both moved toward each other on various issues. But I remember being so impressed that he accepted me for exactly who I was even though we didn’t agree on everything at the time. He didn’t categorize me based on my views but wanted to see into my mind and heart. He told me he admired my writing, that my heart for the world was so pure and good. He wanted to help me set up a blog to amplify my voice – even though my voice was different than his. I so deeply respected that. I remember thinking “This man is safe – this man accepts me now even when we were different, so I can trust that as I grow and change throughout the course of my life and as my beliefs grow and change – no matter where I land he’s going to continue to accept me.” And that actually is one of the main reasons I originally decided to give us a shot.
Caleb sacrificed so much for me but I know that he would want the world to know that I healed him as well. In the almost 4 years that we knew each other, I saw Caleb grow and heal in his own mental health. I have seen his smile get bigger over the years and he lit up anytime I walked into the room. I’ve heard from lots of people who knew him for many years say that they could see a physical change in him – he became lighter and brighter, more confident, more joyful, because he knew that he was loved. He told me he had been searching for me his whole life. I am so honored that I could love him the way he deserved.
Our connection was so magnetic that numerous times strangers would stop us in the streets to tell us how happy we made them, or that our love was so tangible that they could feel it. It happened so often it became an inside joke.
Caleb was so intentional in his commitment to me – He was always looking for ways to improve, to work on himself, to do better. He would tell me he wanted to be the partner I deserved. He was always researching marriage and long-term relationships and how to do those well. He would come up to me sometimes with a new idea he got from a podcast or a book and he’d be so excited. Once he said “I learned about this idea called marriage-meeting and you set aside time regularly and you talk about your affirmations for each other and your plans for the week and you work out any conflict – I want to do that, and I think we should do it every week.” And we did for a long time. It made our relationship healthy and strong and a safe place where we could trust each other. Thankfully I wrote down all his affirmations for me in those meetings and I have them to look back on now.
About a year and a half before his death, Caleb decided he was going to start hiding me little love notes around the house and in my things. Out of the blue they started popping up everywhere. I kept discovering these little handwritten notes in my pockets and my purse, in my makeup bag, in my car, on the bathroom mirror – these little tokens of his love for me, saying things like I meant the world him, that I was his Sarah Bear, that he loved me so much.Caleb always kept a note on his dashboard that I had left for him under his wipers while walking past his car downtown one day. I didn’t have a pen with me so I wrote “I <3 U” with my red lipstick on a piece of scrap paper. He proudly displayed that for the rest of his life.
Caleb and I spent hours adventuring together, and we never ran out of things to talk about. We filled our evenings and weekends with longboarding, and chatting on long drives, camping and hiking hundreds of miles. Caleb was always so prepared when we went backpacking, with all of his nifty gadgets. He had a tool for everything! He once lent me a camping flashlight that came with five paragraphs of instructions! On one backpack trip we packed an entire carton of raw eggs 45 miles into the backcountry on a bumpy trail for five days because he wanted to make me a tasty breakfast over a campfire.
Caleb and I became deeply attuned to each other, we usually could always tell what the other person needed – sometimes even what they were thinking. It was very early on in our relationship that we knew that we were each other’s person for the rest of our lives. It happened out of the blue one day when we were just looking into each other’s eyes and at the exact same second we both realized that we wanted to get married to each other. I don’t know how we both knew that the other person was thinking this but we just did and in that exact same second, right after Caleb realized that I wanted to marry him too, he asked me right then and there he said so much emotion in his voice“Sarah, I want to marry you! Will you marry me??” and I paused for a brief moment, realizing that in this split second in time I was both realizing and committing to the decision that I wanted to be one hundred percent devoted to Caleb for the rest of my life. And I knew without a doubt that it was the right decision, I said “yes I want to!” Seeing the emotion that just poured over his face – I will never forget that moment – he started bawling happy tears laughing and crying and he pulled me into the biggest bear hug and held me there and cried for a long time. He was so happy. We were so excited to marry each other.
After committing our lives to each other, Caleb immediately started calling me wifey. He started telling me that he (and I quote) “was going to marry the fuck out of me”, he kept talking about how beautiful we were both going to look on our wedding day with our luscious long hair. He wanted the whole world to know how much he loved me. He told me, “I will never get divorced. I’m committing to you for the rest of my life. This is it.”
‘Caleb – I never got a chance to publicly declare my wedding vows to you. But today I will declare these vows to you. Caleb, I vow to keep my love for you alive every single day. I vow to spread your story throughout the earth wherever I go. I vow to be an extension of your life and to live for both of us – to do the things that you never got to do, to finish the work you began, to love the people you loved and to care for them, to embody your values. Caleb, I vow to honor you by rebuilding my life. I vow that wherever I go, people will know your name and they will know how much you radically changed my life. Caleb, I vow to be your legacy.’ “