Grief Built into the Depths of Hope

how open and relational theology helped me (helps me) hold all the complexity

It was June 2015 and my little family of four, partner and I, 18- and 13-year-old were in Colorado. It was a trip I’ll never forget. Not just for the mountains. We had been in them many times. Not just for the four of us being together, for, though it’s rare now, at the time that was somewhat commonplace.

No, it was a trip I’ll never forget because it was the first time away without our daughter and as much as I enjoyed the four of us, it didn’t feel right; it wasn’t right.

I kept thinking about us as a unit … we were missing something … we were different … we were 4/5s. I’m honored to be with my friends at Process and Faith Thursday night doing a reading of my book, but this is how I wrote about it in indigo: the color of grief

4/5s
became
the reality
in the span of a heartbeat

her heart stopped beating
in a span of a heartbeat
and we were 4/5s
a fraction

a fraction
doesn’t work
like a whole
something
someone
is missing

it’s more than
just someone missing
it’s also the role
the someone played

her role in our family
was something like
a catalyst or
initiator

we didn’t assign the role
it’s just who she was
from day one
more wind
than weathervane
more thermostat
than thermometer

like, if the boys
were mired in a mood
she could pull them out
but flip the script
and boys had
little chance

she was her own
strong
intentional
capable
person

remember being with
extended family once
when great grandmother fainted
and passed out for a moment

she recovered quickly
but for a few minutes
we were unsure of
how it would turn out

several of the
pre-teenaged cousins
ran to the basement
upset about the event

but even more upset about
our girl not showing
enough emotion regarding possibility
that great grandmother might
no longer be alive

their concerns escalated
in volume and intensity
until finally
our girl stood up
with fists pointed to the ground
and announced
to the whole group

look
i’ll cry
once we find out grandma
is actually dead

the room calmed
apparently
the cousins thought
the logic was sound

yeah, she could
change the environment
when she wanted

remember the first real trip
we made as a fraction
“family” vacation
playing board games
so awkward

at some point during the evening
i sat back and watched
the four of us
doing our best
learning how to interact
without her
less neurochemicals
less laughter
less volume too

an image
materialized
in my mind’s eye
something revealing
neurological activity
within a group of people

yeah, some kind of
visual spectrometer kind of thing
displaying the interaction
bouncing around
within a family of five doing life
you know, interacting
playing
arguing
talking
singing
taking trips together

with her: a range of colors
burst across the display
without her: areas
noticeably muted

more than that
there were specific areas of
the visual projection
the thing displaying
the interaction
bouncing around
within a family of five doing life

you know, interacting
playing
arguing
talking
singing
taking trips together
that were completely dark

that night
after the board games
after the visual spectrometer kind of thing
yeah, that night
was the worst

couldn’t relax
couldn’t sleep
rotating ceiling fan
slowly
shadow of cloud and moon

i’d get up and go somewhere
but there was no place to go
to get away from my thoughts
to get away from me
to get away

kept thinking about
the way she could light
brothers up

kept thinking about
their neurological activity
changed forever
marriage changed forever
me changed
forever

kept seeing dark spots on
that stupid visual display
fuckin interactive visual spectrometer-thing
kept apologizing to whoever was listening
for saying fuck

just kept thinking about
how much fun it all
used to be
before the day
everything
changed

---

Hey, I’ll be with John Cobb and Friends today, March 5, at noon CST, attempting to talk about some of this grief and lack stuff. The link isn’t public, but here’s the info …

TIME: Tues, 9:45 am "Meet & Greet" | 10:00 am Main Meeting (Pacific Time)
LINK: Click here to automatically join the meeting

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It was the sense of the missing that captured my attention … that piece that kept us from being whole … the hole within the whole.

Grief can be considered in many ways; indeed, in indigo, I seek to do just that, but one way it might be thought of is as a hole. Where your love used to go, the person who used to receive and return the love is no longer present … it’s an empty space … the love has nowhere to go.

I wrote somewhere recently (where did I put that? I think it’s lying alongside some loose change and rubberbands in that one kitchen drawer … yes, I can picture it now), anyhow, I wrote that grief is an ache that winds up going everywhere and a love that winds up going nowhere.

Grief is a no-where, a hole, a void. In philosophical language, maybe we could use the word, lack. So, yes, I became intensely aware of the lack, intensely connected to it’s darkness and pain. In some ways, it was the very last connection I had with my daughter. What a strange phenomenon … that love for my daughter included this hole of darkness and pain that has. just. never. left.

It’s the lack, the no-thing, the emptiness that catalyzed my need to write indigo: the color of grief. How weird is that? When someone asks me, “What inspired you to write the book?” I can honestly say, “Nothing.”

Here are the opening pages of the book …

p r o l o g u e

thunder

and brooding skies
sent us scrambling down
the mountainside

shale and rock
went before us
rain came behind us and
then on top of us
little explosions of
rocky mountain
raindrops
dramatically bursting
on shoulders and heads
amplified by
plastic-hooded raincoats

we ducked
below the tree line
and found an outcrop
of rock and root
just big enough for
father and i to fit
within and
underneath

i remember
smell of atmosphere
sway of pine trees
buzz of charged air
the sense of a terrible beauty

and then
a single
bolt of lightning

it was a brilliant detonation
across the backdrop of
all i could see

it flashed
in an instant
though for a second or
two i could see the outline
of its power etched
in the air
lingering

electricity
of the past
throbbing beauty
of the present

---------------------------------

my daughter was a
twenty-year lightning strike
brilliant detonation
across the backdrop of
all we were

she flashed
in what now
seems like an
instant

though i think i
still see the outline
of her power
etched into the air
lingering

electricity
of the past
throbbing beauty
of the present

absence
is protagonist now

it’s weird
absence is nothing
a no-thing
but it’s very much something
a some-thing

it has no form but
it forms me
it has no energy but
but it energizes me
i’m full of its emptiness

only now occurs to me
(ninety-nine months beyond
daughter of lightning
flash of car wreck)
that all these words
might be an attempt to
absorb the shock
control the effect
fill the emptiness

as if the thing-ness of words
can fill this wordless no-thing

i have an image of 
youngest son 
maybe age five
poolside
struggling to get a toy
out of his pocket

he’s wrestling wet shorts
hands reaching
turning round and round

i watch him for a
whole hour one minute
as he spins
never getting anywhere

a boy chasing an object
like a dog chasing a tail
a world chasing a sun   
a sun chasing a galaxy
a galaxy chasing a cosmos

that’s me
trying to trap
questions with my creeds
shadows with my candles
lightning with my eyes

that’s me
trying to address
the no-thing
with me
always

---

Now that I’ve located the nothing in your mind’s eye (haha, what a weird sentence), I invite you to just place it off to the side for a moment. Do you see it? Nothing over there off in the corner of your mind?

I turn to the work of René Girard for a moment …