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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

A ‘Truly Beautiful’ Grief.

November 9, 2018 by HappyGoStuckey 7 Comments

Every week I listen to Emily’s podcast, The Next Right Thing. She’s been an unintentional mentor for my writing life for five years, but lately her podcast for the hesitant has been speaking to many quiet areas of my life. 

I slip my earbuds in and push play on this week’s episode, #58 entitled Welcome Silence. 

“The world we live in doesn’t cater to healing. It all spins way too fast and we spin right along with it…These people are healing, growing, grieving, and silence is a necessary companion on all these journeys. Like a toddler refusing a bedtime, we don’t always like this imposed silence. But what if, instead of pushing it away, we welcomed the silence needed for healing and for health?” —Emily P. Freeman

Emily’s words are healing to me personally and near the end of the episode, she invites us to be silent for one entire minute. She keeps time and we keep quiet.

In my own moment of silence, I chop potatoes for soup (because chopping vegetables is about the stillest, most natural thing my hands do.) Tears roll down my cheeks and slide into my growing pile of pieces. 

My heart is tender today and it catches me. But because silence is my only real job for this minute, I let them fall. 

It is in this blessed reprieve of noise, that my tears bring clarity. 

You see, my husband and I lost someone dear to us this week. Dr. Carson was a seminary professor who employed us both and then watched gleefully as we chose each other. He grinned all the way to the altar less than a year later, where he performed our simple and joy-filled wedding ceremony. 

I know all the ways he touched our individual and collective lives, and the list is longer than my arm. He was another parent to me when my parents were a day’s drive away. His lack of physical sight never stopped him from truly seeing me—and sharing what he saw. 

I was his cook; he was my counselor, professor, and friend. 

Each night I prepared his dinner before I went home to my apartment and roommates. Before I left, his hand inevitably shot up in the air and he would pray for me, always beginning with the words, “Kind Father, bless this girl…” 

When our paths diverged, Lance and I were parents ourselves and he was past eighty, still speaking words of wisdom & praise. 

Last Saturday in a coffee shop in Greenville, SC— I received the news. 

Leaving an empty shell behind, he stepped right into the presence of God with eyes that saw clearly for the very first time. In the moments that followed the email, I felt relief and complete joy. This is absolutely the greatest and best new adventure for him and I know he has been waiting for this day. 

Still this week, I have felt a heaviness I could not ignore. In library runs and ballet drop off and lunch making there has been a weight around my heart that feels like homesickness. I am fairly certain that is exactly what it is. 

Andrew Peterson calls it “a joy that hurts.” 

But not until I stand chopping potatoes, listening to this first moment of true silence in my day— do I recognize that I am grieving. 

The last few years have kept Lance and I just distanced enough from him that I feel I am not entitled to my grief. This grief that creeps up on me while I chop potatoes and remember how he liked his potatoes every Thursday evening— roasted and brown with bits of onion. I recall that he had more knowledge of the Bible than any sight-blessed person ever, and also a talent for making homemade lemonade. 

I feel silly in my sadness because I know just how healed- happy he is. I know my sadness is not for him, but for all of us still on this side of the door. 

To turn my heart, I turn to old emails. And there it waits for me, written in 2007. Words that are somewhat prophetic from my dear Dr Carson–

“I am getting ready to set my house in order, preparing for my
last days on this earth. I am as happy as a sunbeam, for soon I shall be
with Jesus. I am going to “take time to be holy” and serve as best I
can for the next couple of years… I will always be your friend, and it is to my joy that you met the man you are about to wed, met him officially here at my home.”

Eleven years of life later, these words pour over my heart and fill in all the hollow places that grief leaves behind. They dam up the emptiness that losing someone leaves behind. Knowing the gift we held feels richer when have lost someone great.

But I know we need both. 

We need both the deep, throat-tightening grief that feels unfounded and the sunny yellow joy that springs up, feeling just like sacrilege.  Both the pain of saying goodbye to someone and the remembrance of their colorful mark on the world are worthy of our time. Worthy of our silence. 

We can choose to welcome both joy and grief, recognizing we have two hands— one for joy, one for grief—  to hold both at once. 

And perhaps we might remind one another — 

We will likely always find traces of our own homesickness in our grief. 

Until there is nothing more to miss and nothing more to grieve. 

Until all the tears are dried. 

Until we are all home. 

Until everything is “Truly Beautiful.”

 

Read more about our dear Dr. R. Logan Carson, here. 

A Fall Happy List (what I’m loving.)
What I Learned & Loved this Fall

Comments

  1. Cheryl says

    November 11, 2018 at 10:13 pm

    So sorry for your loss. A beautiful tribute to your friend and mentor. ❤️🙏

    Reply
    • HappyGoStuckey says

      November 13, 2018 at 2:12 pm

      Thank you Mrs Cheryl. I hope it was an encouragement to you also. Always happy to hear from you!

      Reply
  2. Deb Weaver says

    November 12, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    Cynthia, this is beautiful and throbs with grace, love, & hope. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
    • HappyGoStuckey says

      November 13, 2018 at 2:10 pm

      Thank you dear Deb. I am grateful my gratefulness shines through even a little bit in this post. <3

      Reply
  3. Wesley Price says

    November 13, 2018 at 1:13 pm

    Thank you for sharing this! I know exactly what you mean.

    Reply
    • HappyGoStuckey says

      November 13, 2018 at 2:11 pm

      I’m sure you do! Lance and I were talking this morning. What a gift to be the lucky few who spent time with him like that.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What I Learned & Loved this Fall says:
    December 7, 2018 at 3:42 pm

    […] I learned that we can choose to welcome both joy and grief, recognizing we have two hands— one for joy, one for grief—to hold both at once. Lance and I lost someone we loved dearly in November and though it stirred up so many conflicting emotions in us both, they were all equally welcome gifts. I wrote more on this here. […]

    Reply

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I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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✨Whipped Coffee✨ 
2 TBS. instant espresso
2 TBS. cold water
1 TBS. maple syrup or simple syrup
1-2 glasses of ice and milk

Whip/ Beat the espresso, syrup, and water with an electric beater, immersion blender, or hand-held milk frother until frothy and light in color. Scoop over the milk and ice and enjoy!
🪡Do I seamstressed to you?🪡 Really though, 🪡Do I seamstressed to you?🪡 

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While you sit in a season of waiting,
the calendar can often be a cruel companion, reminding you that days go by, weeks, months— with what feels like very little change in the right direction.

Perhaps you can easily assent to: 
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but you strain to see just how it will be when: “...a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Wherever you and I are today— whether we wander, wait, stand firmly planted, or some pressed together combination of all three — we can take heart.

We are not alone.
And this will not be wasted.
What seems to be an unending blank space, an indefinite pause, is a space for new things.

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We do not have to know the outcome to be faithful today.

✨Joy is not disregard for reality as much as it is obstinacy against despair.✨
Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. T Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. There. I said it. These days I’m gravitating to the true & the beautiful as rest for my weary self... and I wonder if you are too.

So much so, that I’m starting a new little offering, it’s called “The Feast: Wonder for the Weary” and the first issue goes out this weekend. It’s a bit more personal (okay this first one is WAY more personal. 🤭) It will be a little bit of everything, all with the goal of offering REST to both the feasters & foragers alike. If you’re already a subscriber— no need to do anything, if not— click through my bio to “keep in touch” and join the feast.✨
We are a people of both lament and praise. We hol We are a people of both lament and praise.

We hold questions without answers— yet we hold them in hands already full of good things.

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The God who is no stranger to our lament, and Who Is the reason for our every hope.
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You are seen and cared for by the God who does all things well. (Even when they feel anything but.)
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On this chilly Saturday, we spent entirely too long browsing for books at our library and then all came home to a fire, mochas, and cocoa, respectively. Of all the things we do not know at this very moment, we know the gifts abound, and are worth counting.

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J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

While scrolling through my photos today, my heart was heavy to realize how far back “before” was.

Before masks and distancing, before loss, before other, more personal bits of hard. Multitudinous change, neither all bad nor all good.

With our free time, we’ve introduced our girls to Tolkien, Bilbo, Frodo, and especially Samwise the Brave. They are officially hooked and we are delighted to watch them discover another world where evil doesn’t win, and the courage of the small matters much. {they close their eyes at the Orcs and we haven’t had a nightmare yet!}🤞🏻😂😬
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