Tag Archives: grief

Tears, Songs, and Hearing His Voice

26 Sunday May 2019

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This morning, I supercried at church – weeping like a small child.

The song was “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Beyond the voices of the choir, I could hear the sound of my dad’s voice…

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…

My dad would sing the song with every fiber of his being. His (probably) tenor voice would sing each syllable with intent. As a civics teacher, a Genocide survivor’s son, and a person who believed Christianity was an active faith, the song was probably the best representation of what he believed.

Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now…

And so, when this song is sung as it was today with the choir, every piece of my being remembered him. I remembered his articulation of faith, of his voice singing a song that was a prayer in his heart. I remembered our time sitting next to one another in church as my faith grew next to his more matured, more articulated faith.

Songs connect us with people and the past. Of moments of joy and of losses. We know what we no longer have, but we know that we’ve been given the gift of something spectacular – the holiness of song, of love, of spirit.

To take each moment, and live each moment, in peace eternally-

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

 

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Grieving the Saints

01 Thursday Nov 2018

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Death’s bite clenched my heart again this year. While the loss of my dad stings even almost 14 months after his death, I’ve had three friends pass in the last week.

The third friend died on November first: All Saints’ Day.

The thick fog of grief hovered as the new month was ushered into our lives. From the deaths of years ago to the crisp new blustery winds of grief’s winter, my heart feels deep sadness. Even when the people who die aren’t the closest of friends or relatives, often we feel off. Like a mild cold or minor infection in our bodies, something is not quite right. We aren’t crying for hours, but our minds are distracted.

This is grief too. Even when someone isn’t close, their loss impacts our world because our connection with one another is deep and eternal.

For all the saints, we give gratitude. For all the saints, we sing a bittersweet melody. For all the saints, we celebrate blissful memories.

 

A Prayer for Last Days

03 Sunday Jun 2018

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Divine One who shifts the workings of the universe-

This marks the end of a chapter- the final words on a page. How sad this segment of the story is closing! With voices retiring and being moved into the archives of my mind, I find myself saddened by this narrative’s end.

I will miss conversation and laughs, the characters I’ve grown to love, and the flow that’s delightfully comfort.

But we all know, Divine One, that comfort is not your goal for the active moments of our lives.

You ask us to turn the page, to trust that this next chapter includes beauty and joy. You ask us to trust you as we look towards the future with cautious optimism.

So as I cheer on the new chapter, I beg you to feed my heart with peace. May I release these memories and people and places into the world, knowing that you care for them, knowing that you connect us forever, knowing that we are all being called to serve your world.

Amen.

First Birthday Gone

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

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Today’s the first time we exist in a February 7 world without my dad in it. And as many of you are well too familiar, this is bizarre.

Most years, I would try to call my dad at midnight. Of course, this would be 11pm CST, a point that wouldn’t matter to him.

Last night, there was no one I could call to wish those birthday greetings.

Dad was born on the seventh day in February in the seventh hour. He used to indicate how the number sevens were lucky for him.

Today would have been his 77th birthday. So on this seventh day of February in which my dad would have been 77, make this world a stronger place. Tell someone what a fantastic job they are doing. Call you congressional leaders to speak your needs and the needs of those marginalized. Watch the news, register to vote, learn the faces of our congressional leaders, or just be a good human today. That’s what Vincent Torigian would want for his birthday.

And Dad, as you abide on that side of heaven, may you feel the love that all of us are sending you on your birthday. Miss you so much.

A Prayer for Goodness and Mercy

24 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Where is that “Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” God? It feels like accidents and overworking and grieving and illness are trailing me as I walk along your holy path.

How do I go forward when all I know right now is pain? Hope shrivels as aches of the soul grow. Will the next turn be more losses, or complications, or even more pain?

And yet I go forward, taking the specks of hope kept safely deep within my soul, waiting for the right place to plant these tiny seeds. For Goodness and Mercy shall pursue me even into the depths of life.

And I will dwell on your path forever, Holy One.

Amen.

On the Last Day of Christmas

05 Friday Jan 2018

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IMG_6230On the last day of Christmas, there were no drummers drumming or pipers piping. There weren’t glittery lights and shiny paper.

No gifts remained to be unwrapped. No large feast with twelve close relatives.

Instead, on the last day of Christmas, there was a hospital room with a soul slowly slipping away. A haunting rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful piped through the television speakers as a code blue was called overhead.

The last day of Christmas was filled with a stale silence. The quiet room was stirred awake by the running of nurses down the hall to resuscitate a life.

A birth was forgotten as death remained in the waiting room.

On the last day of Christmas, true love wasn’t about extravagant presents but about decades-long soulmates singing the final verse of their song together.

And as the tune came to a close, the lone partridge scurried away.

The Year I Became Old

04 Thursday Jan 2018

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I became old in 2017.

Now, I fully do not think that I am “old.” But some turning point happened during the year – of course due to life events.

First and foremost, my dad died. I’m sure I would attain a sense of aging based on that event alone. But because of failed cell phone connections at 5:30am and my mom not receiving emergency calls, I was the one who had to make split-second decisions on my dad’s care when he went into cardiac arrest.

“Intubate him. Do what you can. Anything.” These were pretty much my words when I answered that phone early on that September morning.

When you are forced to make life and death decisions for your parents, you release the remnants of any previous relationship you have with them.  You’ve “adulted” in the fullest sense of the word.

Secondly, last year was the time period when I transformed from simply becoming aware of my upcoming menopause to experiencing the pangs of its birth. With periods becoming irregular – heavy or nonexistent – I noticed the small to large ways my body was changing.

Hello extra ten pounds! Was that a hot flash? I didn’t realize my anxiety would return…

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” – – 1 Corinthians 13:11.

Maybe it’s one event or two that happen within a short time of one another. Something shifts in our mind, and we no longer see the trajectory of life in the same way.

Now is the time to accomplish what I feel called to do.

Now is the time to take the dreams lodged in my mind and bring them to reality.

Being a 44 year old in 2017 beginning the journey to menopause and losing a parent was transformative in ways that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And, yet, most of us have to face these types of changes.

And this is when we shed our old ways and prioritize the elements in our lives so that on our deathbeds there will be minimal to no regrets.

I head into 2018 with words like “resilience” and “survive” on my mind. After a year like 2017, I no longer see this endless time ahead of me. This new year must reflect my new mindset as I care for myself in new ways, love in deeper way, and carpe diem like I haven’t before.

 

Thanksgiving’s Empty Seat

23 Thursday Nov 2017

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God, you fill in all spaces and abide in all times, and yet today, once space will feel every kind of void.

Dad’s seat.

There will be feelings and memories and all sorts of things we want to pile onto that seat. We will fill that chair with tears and sighs and our still-stunned hearts.

How could we be here today, God? No. This can’t be…

(There is no other way around it: today will suck.)

But even as our hearts are breaking throughout the day, help us to fill Dad’s plate with delicious memories. May our time together today be one where we embed the joyful Thanksgiving moments of the past into our souls, recalling moments of laughter and creating new mirthful memories.

Amen.

A Prayer for the Needed Time-Machine

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

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IMG_5221God who operates beyond time and space, would you mind transforming me back to one year ago this afternoon?

Would you send me back to a time when hope still pushed aside the climate of despair? A time when I didn’t know death’s frigid grasp so well… a time when my body hadn’t yet become companions with various types of pain… a time when we stood on the edge of a possibility which would have brought prosperity for more of my neighbors and a time when hate was not so loud.

Where is this time machine, God? Maybe I would have made some different decisions, spent more time with loved ones, cared for myself in new ways.

I know we cannot travel back, and I know forward through the tunnel is the only path to journey. So give me the peace and strength as the suffocating shadows swallow me as I drive this stretch of road.

And as I reemerge from the tunnels, may your sunlight warm my soul again.

Amen.

 

Glimpses of Survival Through Grief

06 Monday Nov 2017

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Sturdy God through the flimsy times,
I discovered that I may endure this time in the wilderness.
I may escape the land of everlasting shadows.
I may find more than an oasis from grief.

Now, I’m not sure how I will feel in two hours or four days, but right now, God, I embrace this gift from your Spirit.

Sure, I know the moon’s dance will cross between me and the sun,
And my soul will feel every bit of the lack of light from the eclipse.
And there will be days when the clouds leave no gap to allow the blue sky to show its friendly face.

But I’ve seen those days before.
And I cried and screamed.
And once again, the sun showed her face.

Again and again, after the shadows have had their say, the light breaks through.

This is the human life.  This is the way I know that I will endure.
This is how I know I will make it from one breath to the next
And from one day to the next.

Even as I walk through the shadow filled valleys, you are with me God.
And you will journey with me to sunlight again.  Amen.