As many of you reading this are aware, we lost our oldest son Hayden on September 20 of this year. We all know that we will experience the loss of loved ones in our lives. It’s predestined that we will lose our grandparents and parents, even our pets. There was a part of me that always knew that I would lose Hayden, I even wanted that, because I didn’t want his care to be a burden on his brothers. What I didn’t expect was that it would happen so soon, or so suddenly. In my mind I would be an old lady and he would be a man.

So lets talk about grief. In today’s world we are all trying to capture the fountain of youth. We want to look younger, feel younger and be younger and I have noticed a trend away from acknowledging death. How many times now do people die without even having a funeral? I have seen it happen in my own extended family, even people of faith not having a service or a burial for a mother or husband. We, as a society, seem to have become extremely uncomfortable with the concept of death. And I think that we are all suffering for it.

When we were sitting in the hospital room saying good bye to Hayden I looked over at our priest and we talked about how I was not going to just “get over” this. And it was our Anglican priest who mentioned that the Orthodox practice was to have multiple prayer services. The moment he said that it felt right. I needed to “lean” (his word, not mine) into my grief and not try to pretend that life was okay.

As a result of that choice, to embrace the pain and the loss and the process of grieving, many of you have come to know a little more about Hayden. I took 40 days, I put black ribbons on our house, turned off our porch lights, wore black every day and arranged for prayer services on the third, ninth and 40th days following Hayden’s loss. I posted every day about my beautiful boy. I have cried, I have raged against God, I have questioned his existence and I have dwelt on the hole in my heart.

And what did leaning into my grief get me? At the end of those 40 days I was ready. I was ready to turn the lights back on, to wear something a little brighter, to feel joy. And each stage of the process of grieving helped. The first prayer service, the second, the funeral and the final service at 40 days after which we buried him. Each one of these was a step toward saying goodbye. Closing up his house, closing his casket at the church, being there for his cremation and the burying of his urn – each of these moments broke my heart. Each of these moments were steps toward the finality of life without Hayden, and each of these moments were an important part of this journey.

I know first hand that business of funeral homes is not inexpensive these days. But the act of mourning is vitally important. Many churches will hold a service for a very small fee – just to cover the cost of opening their doors in off hours. Yes, we should “Celebrate Lives”, but it’s okay to be sad too. It’s okay to call death what it is, it’s okay to spend time crying and missing the ones you love. Life is messy and imperfect and hard sometimes and we don’t need to gloss over the ugly parts – we need to lean into them and experience them. It is only by living in the darkness that we can truly appreciate walking back out into the light.

I will write another time about the ways in which God has reached out to me during this time, but for now, God bless.

Meredith