When Grief Threatens to Steal Our Easter Joy

Easter is going to be different this year.

I’m writing this in early March (before Covid-19 effectively shut down much of our lives), and already I sense this.

I’ve walked past the billowy dresses in the girls’ clothing department and felt the pang of knowing that my girls who used to love such attire have different styles now. I’ve passed the “Easter” aisles at Wal-Mart and felt another twinge as I realize this may be the last year that both girls will be at home on Easter morning to open the baskets that Randy always prepares for us.

I’ve seen the blog posts, viewed the Instagram stories and even heard the sermon references to this season of sacred preparation. There’s so much good information out there about how to focus on the real meaning of Easter and teach your family to do the same.

But I haven’t given anything up for Lent. I’m not delving into an Easter devotional. I don’t even know if we’ll break out the Resurrection Eggs this year.

What I am doing, instead, is actively mourning the loss of my mom in a way that I wasn’t able to do last year because I was so focused on my dad and his swift decline after she died.

(That’s pretty heavy for a one-sentence paragraph, isn’t it? My word for 2020 is “full,” but it also applies to 2019, when my parents died within five weeks of each other.)

My mom loved food, so a big part of this mourning process includes intentionally making recipes she was known for—her famous spaghetti sauce, chicken cacciatore (passed down from her Italian mother), biscotti (flavored with my dad’s favorite, anise), Lazy Man’s Chicken (covered in foil “shiny side down,” as she always instructed), her Italian meatballs.

I’m not weeping into my sauce pot, necessarily, but I am thinking of her. As I do, I’m feeling both sad and incredibly grateful.

It seems like kind of a gentle grieving, if that makes any sense at all. And somehow during this season, that seems very appropriate and natural.

As the calendar moves toward Resurrection Day, it comforts me to remember that our suffering Savior is a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3). He knows the joy my parents are experiencing in heaven, but He also understands how much we miss them.

He knits our families together, after all. And when some of those stitches unravel, even after a long and useful life, it still hurts.

I wonder how the next couple of months are going to go. Will I reflect on my mom’s passing more on Good Friday, the day she died last year, or on April 19, the actual date she died?

Will Easter Sunday feel joyous or sorrowful or some mixture of both?

I guess I’m about to find out.

Writing about grief and grieving is always a bit tricky. I don’t want to give the impression that because I haven’t written about this topic much lately, I’m all put back together—better than I was before my mom died in April and my dad in May.

I don’t want to put readers off with all the grief talk, but I also know that reading about someone else’s experiences before it happens to you—or perhaps while it is happening to you—can be helpful.

Maybe sharing what it looks like for me right now will give others a little bit of courage to fight their own good fight, whatever the loss.

Grief ebbs and flows, this I know for sure. And at this point in my own journey, I’m inclined to think that this movement is good.

If water just sits there, it gets stagnant; it needs to be stirred up every now and again. I’m finding that the natural process of grieving fosters this kind of turmoil too.

It’s OK to mourn, even when it prevents you from getting into the Easter spirit.

It’s OK to wish something bad hadn’t happened, and also to be relieved that it’s over.

It’s OK to feel conflicted, to not know why we feel the way we do, to wonder what convoluted stew of emotions the next days or months are going to bring.

It’s all OK, even when it doesn’t feel OK, because of Psalm 23:4.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.