A simple trip to the local Menard's store lead to a shared memory of our families loss.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragementgive you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, Romans 15:5

When my wife got home from setting up her library in preparation for the start of the new school year the next day we had supper consisting of the labor day tradition of hamburger before going shopping and a celebratory 'Cherries Berries'. 

After  dropping her off at JC Penney's I drove over to Menard's to pick up some thing I needed. As I was walking through the store I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in several years. He was our son's piano teacher and his family got to know our kids going back to the preschool days. 

I was reminded how his family was equally as devastated as our was when they received the news of Maria's untimely demise.  Much of our conversation centered on the inappropriate condolences that many Christian's give to the bereaved.  He understood because when his dad died when he was a young adult and  he heard those condolences. 

Things that we heard that I am sure he had also heard include the following:  (1) the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,  This condolence has nothing to do with what we were going through at the time of our loss.  In my mind God wouldn't just take a child simply because he wanted a pretty flower in his garden.

 (2) If God wanted to stop her from dying he would have. This makes God into a cruel monster who decides who will live and who  will die and is a condolence that does more damage than helps. My interpretation of the scriptures tells me that we live in a fallen world where mistakes are made that cause sudden death. 

(3) After a year after our friends father died a well meaning friend said to him that maybe he needs to move on after he once again talked about his dad.  I remember hearing this similar phrase from some folks.  It is as though grief is suppose to end at a certain point and we are expected to pack all of our memories of the person  into a box and shove it back into the closet where the memories are not to be mentioned again. 

 Grief has no set timetable. The amount of time it takes to travel that journey depends on the  timetable of the griever. 

 Some things I have learned on this journey are the following: (1) Regardless of how you are feeling from Sunday to Sunday get up and worship the Lord at a church. In my families case it was the weekly rituals of church attendance and fellowship that helped us heal. 

(2) Continue the same rituals of the surviving children.Whatever they were involved in before the loss they must continue after the loss. Rituals are comforting and they provide stability to the grieving child. 

 (3) Be patient with those around you because just as I learned from my friend at the local Menards store there are many that are equally as crushed as the immediate family. (4)  For the schools I recommend that you have a contingency plan subsisting of  professionals skilled in addressing the needs of traumatic grief who will be there should the unthinkable happen.  This final point is so important because of the impact grief can have on the developing brains of the grieving child. Unless their grief needs are addressed many may struggle in school.

I was affirmed tonight by this friend.  He said that he really like the fact that my wife and I continue to talk about Maria and he encouraged me to continue doing so. Thank your Lord for our paths crossing in this store. By the way, I had mentioned to my wife I was going to Best buy but in the last moment decided to shop at the Menard's store. Perhaps it was the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit that lead our paths to cross?