What is grief?

I lost two loved ones this spring within a span of five weeks. One was my grandfather, and one was a very close friend. They played different roles in my life, but they were both needed very much. I spent a great deal of time with each of these people in my thirtysomething years... and yet I don't think these two people were ever in the same place at the same time, let alone MET.

When my grandmother died, some twelve years ago now, I could not be there for the funeral. "You spent time with her while she was alive," my mother said, "and that's most important." I believed her, and yet I still felt this weight of... expectation. I remember experiencing waves of guilt, thinking back to the week she died. Should I have put myself in seclusion the day of the funeral, my own way of mourning, since I couldn't be there? Was I a worthless person because I could smile at someone else while she lay cold in a casket? I couldn't figure out what it was I was SUPPOSED to be doing. What was a grieving granddaughter supposed to look like? How much time had to go by before I could laugh or say her name? So many questions I never really found answers to...

When my dear friend died this April, I'd been mourning for about a week before then. We'd all been told that it wouldn't be long now, and I struggled with guilt for being so far away. I was angry over all the things we never got to do together, the conversations that wouldn't happen anymore. But I knew that there was no getting better for my friend, and I knew how painful the present was. So my friend's death actually brought me more... relief, I suppose. I grieved and wept more during my friend's dying than because of my friend's death.

After the funeral, one of my friends remarked that "you cannot judge how people grieve," meaning that we cannot put expectations and rules on people about their behavior when they lose someone. The statement was an unexpected gift to me. I'd been stressed about what I was supposed to be doing and feeling, rather than just letting myself experience grief in whatever form it took. I could tell stories about the people I'd lost and laugh at the memories without feeling guilty. I could take a moment to bawl privately in the car, weeks after the burial, and know that it was okay. I could just...be.

When my grandfather died, a scant few weeks after my friend's burial, I almost felt... prepared. I'd never wish back-to-back funerals on anyone, and it certainly wasn't the way I wanted my life to be. "Can I catch a breath, God? I haven't wrapped my head around my first loss yet." But at the same time, with all the struggling, thinking, and grieving I'd already been doing, my coping skills were already warmed up. I could use what extra energy I had left to handle the drama of my family without worrying about how I was feeling or reminding myself that denial just leads to bad indigestion and monster headaches. I could wear my heart on my sleeve if I chose, or I could crack jokes with my uncle about the clothes some people wear to visitations. I finally understood that there wasn't an expiration date on my grace period for grieving. God would be there with me, whenever, wherever. I didn't have to explain myself to anybody. I could just...be.

As always, the only lessons I've ever truly learned have been through experience. I can read books about handling loss, I can do my empathetic best to listen to someone who's grieving and try to understand...but I'd never have gained this development of who I am without this spring, my own season of loss.

There is no coming to life without pain. --Carl Jung

Parenting in the post-modern world

Being a parent myself, I'm fascinated by child-rearing in other cultures and other time periods. Since I don't subscribe to multi-culturalism, I certainly don't agree with every parenting practice I come upon. Looking back over annals of medicine and health throughout history, I'm surprised we survived as a species.

I think the thing that has struck me the most recently is how the purpose behind having children has changed. I suppose you have to start with God's command to Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful, and multiply..." There was a planet to propagate, and only one womb to start with. Yikes!

As you speed forward through the ages, you find that children are born and bred to continue family lines. A farmer farms for his sons, and you need heirs to control the family estate. Children were wanted for house and farm workers; it was the cheapest way to get labor. And the more children you could have, the better, since infant and child mortality was high.

Also, for most of history (and even current times), children were born to ensure racial purity and superiority. Other tribes, nations, etc. were often the enemy, and you could only beat the enemy if you had more people in your clan than they did.

These reasons, of course, only account for the children that were conceived and born on purpose. There has been great hardship over the course of human history because of unplanned children. Some of this has been due to rash behavior, and a great deal of it has been due to lack of forethought. Family size often exceeded family income;It was common practice in Renaissance England for families to take children to the local vicarage because they could not afford to feed them. Only within the last hundred years has mankind figured out how to prudently control the size of their own families and provide for them consistently.

Don't misunderstand the prior paragraph. I'm not making an argument for Planned Parenthood, and I'm not suggesting that children in and of themselves are nothing more than a burden or a problem to be dealt with. I'm not saying that people only had children for unemotional reasons, or that we are the only culture to love our children. Every family SHOULD prayerfully decide how they want to handle birth control for themselves, and EVERY child is a gift from the Lord. However, we have all seen people not place themselves under God's sovereignty or choose to ask Him for direction. The preceding paragraph was merely a statement of things as they have been through the years.

Now, we find ourselves in a different world. We don't really need to bear children to run the family business or protect our lands. Our species is not in danger of becoming extinct. We don't need to bear children to keep our own bloodlines alive. "There is neither Jew, nor Greek, male nor female.... you are all one in Christ Jesus." We live in a culture where contraception is readily available and encouraged (whether you want it or not). There is more information on how babies are made than there ever has been before, so no one in an educated world can really claim ignorance. More than ever before, we live in a world where we can choose to have children...or not to.

So the philosophical question is, why do we? If we feel that we have financial blessings and want to raise children in a godly home, there are hundreds of thousands of orphans around the world in need of parenting. If we feel called to care for little ones that need love, there are orphanages, hospitals, schools, daycare facilties, etc...all in need of loving adults to work in them. Why do we, as educated, wealthy, "First World" citizens decide to conceive and bear our own offspring?

Once again, I'm going to clarify my statements. Obviously, I've had my own children, and I'm thankful for them. I wholeheartedly believe that God wanted me to have my children, and I cannot deny that desire as a woman to be a mother. I don't denounce that feeling, or scorn it. God does call people in this modern age to have their own children...but heck if I can figure out why.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone can give a well-worded, concrete answer to that question. Beyond the "life force," as humanists call it-- that God-given desire to continue the species-- why do we become parents?