Last week, my daughter’s home burned down. They were woken up in the middle of the night by a Bang, the raging fire outside was discovered, and they got out with only the pajamas on their backs and a couple of things hastily grabbed on their way out.  Within ten minutes, the house was completely engulfed in flames. Fire Ash Soot…. 

Grateful is the word of the week….but also his cousin—grief. The greatest times of gratefulness can come out of struggle, devastation, helplessness…. Gratefulness shines through subtly at first, and then with the warm glow of a sunrise.  And, dear hearts, you can hold both gratefulness and grief in the same hands. Just because you are grieving does not mean you are not grateful.  

We are quick to want to push aside grief—it makes us uncomfortable in ourselves and in others. We wanna see the rainbow dang it—and that rainbow (in our minds) must cancel the grief.  But what if I were to tell you the rainbow is there because you sit in grief.  Think about it—think about where that rainbow picture is first mentioned—with Noah and the ark full of animals.  Do you think they floated 370 days on that Ark and didn’t exit with grief—their home, their garden, their friends, other family members….the place where Noah and his wife fell in love…gone.  Never to be seen again.  Yes, they had a new start and yes God was good in His mercy….but dang…that’s a lot. 

As I ponder the contents of that house: my great grandmother’s coffee table, which my dad lovingly restored; the baby giraffe I gave to MiniMe the day she was born; love letters; baby quilts; family photos; sentimental jewelry; that Millenium Falcon T-shirt chickadee’s Hubbie always wore; the littles’ artwork…rooms carefully painted, cabinets restored by hand….that new stove they just saved up for….vintage Christmas decorations in the attic…. As I ponder these things, grief just washes over me because they are never coming back.  You cannot replicate them. Their value on paper may be $1.00 at a local garage sale, but they are precious.  They are a sign of a well-curated life.  

Think of a museum. Perhaps the museum of a city, or the complete works of an artist.  Let’s stay that museum burned down and nothing survived.  We’d immediately understand the depth of the loss.  So why is it when signs of our well-curated life disappear, we discount our grief—discount our loss?  Why is it hard to grieve–and allow others to grieve?  Yes, it’s just stuff (and I believe that to my core), but also, it’s Not.Just.Stuff.  

A fire is violent—it burns through everything with such velocity without regard to how precious things are.  The sounds of the snapping…the roar of the flames getting oxygen—the heat—the smell….  You stand there and watch it burn—watch those precious things you spent your life curating and collecting—not in a material sense, but as a sign of love lived…. Watch them literally go up in flames.  

That’s hard.

Sometimes, that devastating fire is not perceptible to the eye.  It can take other forms: 

An Affair

Abuse. 

Divorce. 

Death. 

The Loss of a friendship. 

Words spoken in frustration which cannot be taken back. 

Theft. 

Sickness. 

Mental Illness. 

Addiction. 

Those fires can burn through relationships like kindling on a dry day….and char the edges or even decimate trust in yourself, community with others, self-worth, happy memories, trust in God, hope….. 

During my divorce, I left so many things in that house….things which were rightfully and legally mine—I just didn’t have room for them in my 1300 sqft New Life.  Letting go was a process–and not one I always approached in the Best Version of Becky…it stung….tears were shed….the unfairness of it all. They were a picture of the White Picket Fence neighborhood and curated life I left behind–and that loss hit hard.

Sometimes I still grieve them—but not because they are a pretty thing (and y’all know I love pretty things), but what they represent:  my gigantic dining room table—and those dinners with beautiful tablescapes with friends and family—laughing, connecting, playing games, discussing deep things; my pool table: all those social times playing pool and pingpong with friends; my collection of outside furniture—sitting outside listening to the tree frogs serenade me over a glass of wine at night…..so many things that are not really things–they are placeholder proof of the life I built.

The grief may have a catalyst of a lost “thing,” but that grief concurrently stems from a life that’s now burned to the ground.  Yes, you can rebuild and Yes, it can be even more beautiful than the previous version….but First we have to grieve.  We have to grieve that things didn’t turn out as we expected.  We have to come to terms with our own lack of control over what happened. We start playing and replaying the event to almost WILL it to change….to not happen….to stop that fire in its tracks and have the Hallelujah story.  Those What Ifs can derail our grief because somehow that tendency to replay and replay and replay to see how we have a different outcome shifts grief to shame.  

Let me say that again—that replay-replay-replay in our minds to see what WE could have done to change it can shift grief to shame.  And shame wants you to hide—but grief needs a witness….needs community to come out properly…someone to cry with…to hold you while you sob….someone to hear your anguish.

When we have an insatiable need to fix it–to pull it apart over and over and over so we can control it–to find a way in our own power to never let that happen again, we start diving into those murky waters of shame… We are so focused on the Fix and essentially, the Fear it’s all our fault, that we don’t share our grief with others (because what if it really was and they see it). So we hide our fear and present a faux faith that we are really okay.

OR perhaps we don’t grieve because we are afraid people will judge us for our grief–why doesn’t she just pull it together….why is she still crying–it’s been long enough….she’s so emo…. or worse we’ll say to ourselves: well there are starving children in Africa and people who have it worse than me….so I’m okay…we’re all okay…don’t worry about me. And present a faux faith that we are really okay.

And we really are not okay.

We’re faking it until we make it. We’re hiding our fear. We are refusing to be vulnerable and concurrently wondering why we are so alone….

When we start to hide or discount our grief is when shame will gladly pick up the mic and cue whatever song plays in your head over and over and over again. Comparison is not just the thief of Joy, it is the tool of shame.

If you rebuild with shame, dear hearts, you might as well rebuild with charred 2-by-fours.  

Don’t be ashamed to grieve your well-curated life.  Because after grief comes the morning—the sunrise…the hope…the Scarlet O’Hara Tomorrow is a New Day.  It’s there for you–it just needs to be the real kind and not the fakey kind. Let others grieve their losses—don’t be quick to segway the discussion to how they should be grateful—trust me—they know it’s just stuff….but it’s not JUST STUFF….it’s a sign of a well-curated life. 

Cheers.