I recently read a FaceBook meme debunking the fiction we're told that all we have to do is slog through an emotionally dark tunnel after loss, and we'll come out the other end all healed and feeling great. It's so true that there really is no end to the tunnel. Life changes. We can either stare back the way we came, fighting for the dream of what we lost, or we can accept that life will never be the same. All we can work toward is what experts like to call "the new normal."
After my baby died, I spent a long time looking behind me, longing for a way to get back into the life I left behind. I kept feeling like somehow, I could think myself back through time and make the accident that took my baby never happen. I could will my earlier self to do all the right things at the right times to make loss be a nightmare that passed instead of my new hellish reality.
I've since learned that I have little choice but to accept the tunnel in which I live. The sooner I accept, the sooner I can move on. There is no use looking back toward the sunlight, toward the imaginary protection offered by the world above, the world in which "it can't happen to me." The tunnel is my life, my existence. That won't change.
What can change is whether or not I let the light in, even here in the tunnel. At first, letting the light in and feeling joy felt disloyal. I've heard the same from friends who have lost, especially who have had a recent loss. It feels like if you smile, you're betraying the person you've lost. The truth is our angels want us to have joy. We are here to learn to smile and be happy, even in the darkest night and to help others find the same light. Even here in the tunnel, there is fellowship. We can reach out in empathy to others who have lost. There is healing. The Lord can touch our hearts and lift our burdens no matter how deeply we feel we've sunk. If we seek Him and help others lift their burdens, He will make our anguish seem less painful.
This doesn't mean all will be sunshine and perfection. It just means we can seek and receive help to make it through those dark days. We can know we're not alone. I still have days when it feels like my heart is so broken and bloodied, my pit so deep, I'll never find joy again. But as time goes on, and I seek healing, those days seem fewer and further between. Time doesn't heal all wounds. The Lord does. That's why He suffered your pain and mine: so He would understand it and us. He loves us all and wants us to feel joy. We don't need to cling to the fiction that life is supposed to be painless for us to find joy. The dark helps us understand and appreciate the light. He is the light. Let Him in.
