Today is the third Sunday since Nate died, and each one has been the most difficult day of the week. He believed in a six day work week but was always with his family on Sundays, no matter what. Maybe that’s the reason its miserable to sit in church without him next to me and painful to eat Sunday brunch when he’s not at the head of the table. It’s distressing to see the empty chair where he used to read his Sunday papers and sad to order our traditional Sunday evening pizza without him managing the event.

The last three Sundays have been full of tearful moments and heavy grief. First choice would be to stay in bed curled up under the down comforter, cozy and warm in a familiar place. Even without Nate next to me, I would be alone rather than in public. The truth is, Nate’s death was only a blip on the screen for most people while it was an atomic bomb for me.

But that’s the way it goes. Logic flies out the window for the person who’s in the grieving process. I call it a process, because it takes a while to get through it. The other day I looked up the stages of grief, wanting to know where I was and where I’m headed. The seven stages are: 1) denial, 2) pain, 3) anger, 4) depression, 5) turning upward, 6) reconstructing life and 7) acceptance.

After studying the list and detailed descriptions of each stage, I concluded I’m in all of them simultaneously. Stage one, denial, is occurring when I expect Nate to walk in the front door with his empty coffee mug and say, “Hel-lo-oh” in the mini-song he used to sing each day. Stage two’s pain came in church this morning as I watched the couple in front of me hold hands and look at each other. Stage three, anger, is the one stage I haven’t yet experienced, but I’m on the alert for it.

Stage four, depression, is why I wanted to stay in bed this morning, and stage five, turning upward, is the peace I feel walking on the beach. Reconstructing life, the sixth stage, is what’s occurring when I project to filling out forms and wonder which box I’ll check: Mrs, Miss, or Ms. And the seventh stage, acceptance, is happening as we look through Nate’s personal financial records to find the data we need.

As for anger, who would be the recipient? Over the years, I’ve prayed many times asking God to keep me from ever being angry at him, no matter what circumstances would come. Sure, he could have healed Nate’s cancer on this earth rather than in heaven. Yes, he could have prevented Nate’s body from becoming sick in the first place. But as I’ve watched the Lord pour abundant blessings on our family in ways that would not have happened without the cancer, I can’t complain. Besides, Nate was able, by going to heaven, to take a pass on some of life’s toughest battles: increasing pressure in his law business, stenosis of his spine that would have caused a life long decline inch by inch, financial stress and the myriad difficulties of old age. How could I quibble with God over sparing him all of that?

So I suppose experiencing simultaneous grief stages is the way life will go for a while. It reminds me of a childhood game called “Fruit Basket Upset.” Everyone sat in chairs forming a circle around one person in the middle. If that person shouted, “Fruit Basket Upset!” everyone in the chairs jumped up and ran to a new chair. While they were all colliding in the middle, pandemonium reigned. And that part, the pandemonium, is what grieving a loved one is like.

The good news is that eventually everyone in the game finds a new chair, and order is restored. Life will, in due course, be like that for me. The fruit-basket-upset of grieving will change from a pandemonium of emotions to a new place in life’s circle. Even Sundays will once again become a day of joy and satisfaction. Friends who have already experienced widowhood tell me so, and I believe them.

“You [Lord] have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!” (Psalm 30:11-12)

Today marks two weeks without Nate. He is all I think about, and I still let my mind meditate in detail on the moments of his last days. This seems odd, seeing as 14 days have passed, but trauma makes its mark, and I can’t think apart from it.

“Should I stop blogging about your father?” I asked several of our grown kids. “Will people get tired of hearing about his fight with cancer and his death?”

They all responded that losing my husband two weeks ago doesn’t constitute a reason to move on. I was thankful for their answer. It’s therapeutic for me to talk, write and think about Nate.

Today I was thinking back two Tuesdays ago to a few minutes after Nate died. All of us were at a loss as to what to do next. Life had increased in intensity from the day of his cancer diagnosis until his death, which was somewhat like the conclusion of a fast-paced drama. How do you follow that? And how do you avoid falling off an emotional cliff when it’s all over?

We had decided that night we’d do what Nate would want us to do and eat the Chinese carry-out food we’d just put on our plates the moment before he chose to move into eternity. Just before we began eating, each of us feeling subdued and strange, we needed a quick boost.

Earlier in the afternoon while Nate slept, I’d opened the day’s mail. In it was a letter to Nate written by a four-decades-long friend of ours, Lynn. As we sat with our dinner plates on our laps in the living room as we’d done when Nate was in his lazy-boy there, I decided to read from the letter:

“Nate, you are a fine example of running the good race, keeping a steady pace even when the ‘walls’ of life hit you hard. In keeping with this theme, we got an idea for the Chicago Marathon this month (Oct.). Tim, our son-in-law, a hematologist, ran for a leukemia/lymphoma research organization. He also ran for YOU as a symbolic gesture of support for the good race you have run, Nate. We sponsored Tim by donating cash we collected from creative ways to save. We hope you will accept this gift with all our love behind it. There were thousands who read the little banner on his back and prayed for you that day. And we are still cheering you on!”

Lynn enclosed a photo of her son-in-law’s running shirt with Nate’s name on it, and we passed it around the room. Also enclosed was a check for $328, an incredibly important gift because of what it represented. Just at the time when the head of our family passed away, another family was saying how important his life had been to them. The letter was also sprinkled with happy memories of Nate, along with a description of their high regard for him.

On first glance, it seems like the letter had arrived too late. After all, it was addressed to Nate, and he died an hour after it arrived into our home. He was unable to open it or read it.

In hindsight, however, I believe the letter had a much loftier purpose by surfacing when it did. Exactly at the time Nate finished running his earthly race, we read from a letter describing that very image in reference to him. It was as if God put an exclamation point behind Nate’s life. After all, the race verses were his favorite in all of the Bible.

In addition to that, Lynn’s letter gave us the boost we needed at the lowest moment our family has ever experienced. I don’t doubt that God carefully orchestrated the whole thing. Just after Nate “disappeared” and we were struggling to focus on the truth of the unseen rather than the gaunt, cancer-ravaged reality we were looking at, Lynn’s letter provided visible evidence of a race well run. Her words highlighted Nate’s specific race and made us grateful he had crossed God’s finish line.

“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1b)