After the death of a husband, how long does it take to heal? When is grieving finished?
I’ve looked back over recent weeks of blog posts and was surprised to realize not every one of them has been about Nate. At first I was appalled to see this, but after thinking it through, I think it’s as a sign of God’s kind mending of a broken heart. That’s not to say I don’t think about Nate daily, sometimes hourly. But the wrenching sadness happens less and less.
C. S. Lewis published a small book of journal entries penned during deep sorrow over losing his wife to cancer. A Grief Observed was so personal, he wouldn’t allow his name on the cover but instead ghost-published as N. W. Clerk. After Lewis died several years later, his stepson republished it with his true identity.
Lewis went through raw grief, doubting God’s love and availability to him, wondering whether there was an afterlife at all. But by the end of the book, his relationship with the Lord had been restored, and his grief was beginning to heal. In my own progress toward healing, I can relate well to this quote from A Grief Observed:
“There was no sudden, striking emotion. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight when you first notice them, they have already been going on for a long time.”
Today I was strongly encouraged by realizing my healing has already been going on for a long time. It’s not that I’m “finished”. I’ll still experience sad moments and occasional breakdowns, but just as Lewis learned, raw emotion mellows, and we connect with our spouses in a new way. Instead of labeling Nate as “missing”, as having left a big, empty hole in our family, I think of him as our larger-than-life husband and father, the lively, loyal head of our family who was full of personality and loved each of us wholeheartedly.
As one of our kids said somewhere during this last year, “Papa was a legend.” He wasn’t the kind of legend that made the cover of TIME, but a Nyman-legend to be sure. Grief has a way of wrapping what’s good with a negative shroud, but as time passes and we heal, the layers peel away, and the positives come shining through.
God has helped me see more and more of these positives as the months have passed, and I credit him with every bit of my healing. He’s been my constant companion, my shield from despair and, as the biblical David put it, “the lifter of my head.”
Had we known Nate would die at 64, leaving us after only 42 days of warning, we’d have still chosen him for our husband and father. Grieving may not be finished, but he will always be our main man, the one we wanted then, the one we still love now, and the one for whom we thank God.
“You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the One who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice, and he answered me.” (Psalm 3:3-4)
