"grief has no timetable" ...

kindergartners seriously provide the best inspiration.

they’re on their third full week of school now (though it certainly feels like it’s been MUCH longer than that!), but in the class where i spend my afternoon there’s one little girl who’s been following me around like a little puppy dog since day 1. she was constantly watching the clock for when both hands would be on the 3, repeatedly asking how many more things we had until we got to go home. and she couldn’t make it through the day without crying until the end of last week.

at the beginning of the year, it broke my heart when she would essentially be told to suck it up - you’re a big kindergartner now - kindergartners don’t cry. could she really be expected to wake up one morning and be ‘all grown up’? is it really fair to turn her world upside down and then tell her that she has to be ‘fine’?

we do the same thing to adults, too ... telling them the way they should handle change, how long they’re allowed to grieve, what that grief is supposed to look like. that’s not to say that we should be okay with someone staying stuck in their stuff (which is another topic for another day). but everyone is different. and everyone’s process is going to look different.

it reminds me of a story that amy grant tells in her book, mosaic. there was a woman completely grief-stricken by the death of her mother. “she couldn’t find the energy to do much of anything. some days she could hardly eat. most days she never got out of her nightclothes ... then one day, she said, she got up, put her clothes on, and went about the business of living” ... one day, two to three years later. “you cannot rush grief ... grief has its own timetable. what a concept. the time it takes to heal is the time it takes.” it’s like waiting for a train in a third world country, amy goes on to explain. “‘de train will come up dis track. de peoples will get off de train. you will get on. den de train will leave.’ when it happens is when it happens.”

as someone who has struggled with bouts of depression for much of my life, this story has been a great source of comfort. who are we to say how and when a person should ‘get their act together’? what’s important is that we’re continually moving toward whole, no matter how long it might take to get there. for me, all i know is that the times of darkness are getting fewer and farther between, and that each time i slip, i don’t fall quite as far, or for quite as long as i did the time before.

now, that little girl doesn’t have to be by my side all the time, she tells me that she’s not going to cry because she knows that there are only a few things left, she’s starting to make friends ... and she’s smiling.

3 weeks isn’t too bad of a learning curve, if you ask me.