Last Thursday, my grandmother died.
I’d just sent out the newsletter with a “Let Me Tell You a Story” segment that reflected on how God’s perfect love welcomes us amidst our own, so very imperfect love. That even though we’re a mess, He came down from heaven for us, and because of that, we can lead a redeemed life, even when we don’t lead a picture-perfect life–reflections from my visit to my grandmother’s bedside at the nursing home, as she lay there in stage 4 renal failure.
When I posted on social media about her passing, the messages of prayers and condolences soon poured in, of course. Along with the usual sentiments about how much we’ll no doubt miss her and how our memories will comfort us, and how much we all must have loved her. And all those things, all of those sentiments…they’re true. But they are so very far from the complete picture.
Because Grandma Helen lived a messy, complicated, broken life. And mourning her is going to require a messy, complicated, broken grief. And you know what? I think that’s not just okay…I think that’s right.
We live in a culture that doesn’t understand mourning anymore, that doesn’t always make room for grief. Especially in Christian circles, we’re often told to just cling to the fact that our loved ones aren’t suffering anymore, that they’re in a better place, and that if we truly believe that, we ought to be rejoicing instead of mourning.
But you know what? Jesus wept when His friend died, even though He knew He was about to resurrect him. He mourned over Jerusalem, even though He knew it would someday be redeemed. Those emotions are part of being human, and they don’t have to be neat and tidy. They often can’t be neat and tidy, because WE aren’t. And because the people we’ve lost weren’t either.
My grandmother had bipolar disorder. It didn’t make itself known until she had kids, but then it struck…and its impact could be felt for generations. It meant a tumultuous childhood for my dad and aunt. It meant periods of institutionalization throughout their youth and my own. It meant that, even when they found meds that worked for her and which kept her stable, she may at any moment decide she was fine and didn’t need them anymore and stop taking them…which would send the family’s world into a tailspin again. It meant manic phases where she’d buy and buy and buy, and depressive phases where she’d say the cruelest things. It meant five failed marriages. It meant behavior that threatened lives with recklessness. It meant countless tears shed countless times.
She wasn’t a perfect mother, wasn’t a perfect grandmother, and we can’t just ignore that as we mourn her loss. Because our love for her, while so very real and so very big, is wrapped up in so many other feelings. Frustrations and disappointments and maybe tinges of resentment.
But that isn’t the whole story either.
Because there are so many amazing bright spots too, which shine all the brighter because it shows the way she loved through her own brokenness–the way she would stop by with gifts out of the blue. Part of a manic phase? Maybe. But even so, she thought of us. The way she served others for decades with her work in the nursing homes, and how she would help her patients with single-minded care and love that left me slack-jawed when I witnessed it. She wasn’t just a nursing aid, she was a champion. Because, I think, she knew what it was to need help. She could make friends so easily and would corral them to church so often. She would take in stray cats because she couldn’t bear to think of them alone and cold and hungry outside. And her laugh! Oh my gracious. My grandmother didn’t just laugh or chuckle. She cackled. You couldn’t help but grin when you heard it.
Anyone with mental illness in their family knows that it makes life…complicated. But they also know that in most ways, depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder or OCD don’t create symptoms outside the normal experience–they just amplify them. We all experience highs and lows, compulsions, anxious times, and times where we’re down. The “disorder” is when it’s just more than normal, to varying degrees.
And as I feel my way through this new loss in my life, I realize this anew. Because we are all, in some ways, like my grandmother. We all love our families and God imperfectly. We all have moments of generosity and moments of harshness. We’re all a mess–I know I am.
And we’re all redeemed, if we choose to put our hands in our Savior’s, like Grandma Helen did. We’re all loved so perfectly by Him, even as what we offer to him is broken and weak and twisted by our own biases and understandings. But still, He came down from heaven for us. He became man for us. He suffered for us.
We’re all going to suffer in this world, too. Maybe from physical ailments, maybe from mental ones. Maybe from loss of fortunes or loss of loved ones. We’re all going to suffer…and we can know He suffers with us. We can know that, if we let it, that suffering can draw us closer to Him. Show us the depths of His love. And then He can use it to help us reach others who suffer too.
Remembering my grandmother can’t be just remembering the good times, though we certainly will remember those. Why? Because that’s not the full picture, and we lose the beauty of the redemption if we ignore the broken people that needed redeemed to begin with. We are not just our strengths–we are our weaknesses too. Jesus loves us in those weaknesses. We need to love each other in those weaknesses. And so mourning and grief need to make room for them as well.
Grief doesn’t have to be simple. How can it be, when people aren’t? Grief shouldn’t be simple. It shouldn’t be ignoring so much of a person because we’re afraid of how it might look. Instead, I think it should be acknowledging those faults and flaws…and marveling at how they still loved, how God still used them, how those faults and flaws are always paired with graces and strengths.
I do take immense comfort in knowing that in heaven, there’s no more brokenness. No more imbalance. No more disorder. I know that when united with Christ, all those imperfections get lost in His perfection, that she stands before Him now as the person she was always meant to be, the person she was beneath the illness. And that does bring me joy, not just for her, but because it reminds me that we are all shackled by chains of weakness and sin, but they’ll fall away someday. We’ll all be as free as she is now.
Some day, I’ll hear her cackling in heaven, I know. And I’ll grin, and I’ll embrace her. There will be only joy then. But for now, I’ll give room to the sorrow. To the complication. I’ll think through who she really was and how she’s shaped our lives. And I’ll thank God for the 41 years I knew her.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
This was beautiful and honest and it made me cry. Thank you.
Humans are complicated and busted. I’ve had many difficult family members (some imprisoned for awful things; many who should have been to be honest) that came to Jesus later in life. It doesn’t erase the awful or the memories… but once they passed, I could allow myself to love them fully as perfected in Jesus on the other side. We’re close to losing another very difficult-to-love human. And I remind myself daily that God loves us, broken stuff and all because He sees us through the lens of Jesus. And that helps me love them easier. It doesn’t erase the consequences of bad decisions or selfishness, or hurt, or of sin, but knowing they are forgiven in Christ helps me let my guard down enough. And that’s all I can do for now.
This is so beautiful, Roseanna. Thank you for sharing your personal grief with us. Hugs! <3
Roseanna, your words are beautiful. Your vulnerability is beautiful. You have shared what I think needs to be shared in our grief….honest feelings….that all of us are broken…all of us have strengths and weaknesses….all of us deeply need the grace of our Lord.
It must be hard to truly grieve if we aren’t honest with ourselves about our true feelings.
Thank you for sharing this deeply touching tender time for your family.
Praying for you and your family during this time.
Thank you so much for your prayers, Mary, and for your constant encouragement.
So beautiful. We often ignore the mess that’s underneath the veneer we oh-so-carefully polish to a high sheen, because we don’t want to be that vulnerable. Thank you for your vulnerability. It gives me confidence to find my own.
My philosophy is that if you’re not going to be vulnerable, don’t waste your words. 😉 Scary, yes, to show yourself with that veneer you mention…but worth it.
Thank you for sharing. So beautifully written. Such an encouragement 💕
So glad it was encouraging to you, Diane!
Thank-you so much for this. It is true. I do miss my parents and grandparents very much, but I miss them in the totality that I knew them.
The decades don’t change my feelings. Thank-you for putting my feelings into words.
God bless you.
So glad it resonated, Katey! And I absolutely agree. It’s so important to love and mourn the whole, complete person.
Thank you for sharing this piece with us. I’ve read several of your books and have enjoyed your newsletter. I’m also a Christian who lives with bipolar disorder and I appreciate the hope you give for the day I, too, get to live wholly with Christ. What an encouragement for all believers!
Sarah, we all have those things, for sure! And I have great admiration for those who take their diagnoses seriously and with self-awareness. I have a great friend who’s my age and also bipolar, and I see the wisdom with which she and her husband handle it and am so grateful. Of course, it’s a different medical world than it was when my grandmother was young. I’m so, so grateful for all that’s available for us now, especially as other issues like ADHD, depression, anxiety, and OCD make themselves known and felt in my immediate family. Now, they’re what we bear, what we treat, what we learn to thrive with. They’re what will shape us. But someday, we’ll be with Him what we’re all truly meant to be.
Thank you and your family for having the courageous love to share this. This helped me SO much. I think your words are going to keep being used to enlighten and encourage me and others with whom share them. Light always wins over darkness when I open up the book of my heart to Him. (Ps18 MSG).
<3 So glad my words resonated, Jan! And that we can cling to that promise of light always winning! Love that way of putting it.
This is beautiful! My Mom had mental health issues that went undiagnosed and untreated. Many times I bore the brunt of it. Your words perfectly describe my own process of grieving her. It will always be complicated, but it gets “softer” as time goes on. God bless you and your family. Mary
Thank you, Mary! I know it’s a story many families share…that’s why I wanted to put words to it. I so appreciate your comment and assurance!
This is so beautiful and touching. It made me cry. Love all the sentiments you shared about your grandma. Loved the message that we’re all lovably imperfect and that’s why we need Christ’s Atonement so badly. Thank you for sharing a tender glimpse into your life. Praying for you and your family at this sacred time of grief.
Thank you so much, Melissa–and I love that. “This sacred time of grief.” That’s such a beautiful and true way of putting it. Grief isn’t fun…but it IS sacred. <3
Grief is one of the hardest things we’ll ever go through. My dad (1999), my mom (2002), my favorite brother (2013), and three other brothers are all gone. I still grieve my parents and favorite brother. When my favorite brother passed away I was devastated and went through several years of depression. We were close and he was my closest brother in age. Only 18 months from each other. Grief is so hard to bear. The grieving I went through I can imagine the grief God went through for His only Son! Things get better but you never get over the loss. All these years later and I still want call and tell my mom things about her first grandchild (my daughter). Praying for you and your family through this hard time!
Grief is definitely SO hard! And so necessary. And so beautiful. I think we’re shaped by our losses as much as by our gains in this life.