If Grief Could Speak.

I spent the better part of November and December writing about grief, trying to find words to describe what it feels like years later. I never got it right and probably never will.All I really know is that this time last year as Easter decorations started hitting the shelves, I found myself crying in the middle of a Target at the sight of a ceramic bunny, simply because I knew someone I loved deeply would have bought it if they were still here.That every now and then I'll come across a letter I wrote in an old unfinished journal to someone I barely knew but loved deeply. I remember writing those letters in the months after their death, and every time I read the words I wrote, I feel the ache to simply be in the presence of that person, in the place they called home, one more time.That when something good happens, there is always one person I long to tell. The tears flow easy every time I remember they are no longer here to pick up the phone, as I am forced to remember that for rest of my life I can expect the presence of tears in the midst of great joy.All I know if that I have seen the very physical weight of grief on another's shoulders. I've watched the news and found myself weeping for a world that seems to be getting darker and darker. I've missed intangible things - ideas and hopes and memories and people who never showed up. I've felt the need to mourn a loss, without knowing what the loss even was.I don't think grief is picky. It isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. It's intensely personal. It's random. There is no rhyme or reason or combination of words to make sense of it.It comes. It goes. It just is.I couldn't help but wonder what it would say to me, if grief took on skin and sat with me at my kitchen table. I couldn't help but think of the questions I would ask her - Grief feels like a her to me.I'd ask her to tell me a little about herself and why she kept making me cry in public places. I'd ask why she kept showing up, no matter how much time had passed. I'd ask her why she sat on my couch with me as I watched the news, instead of finding ways to ease the world's pain. I'd ask her if there was purpose to it all, and if not, politely tell her that she should leave me and the people that I love alone. I would be honest and tell her that sometimes I hate her, that I was sorry, but it was the truth.Yet the more I thought about what her response would be, the more I realized it wouldn't be at all what I expected.In fact, I think she'd say, "I get it - I think most people hate me. I struggle with myself too sometimes. It is not easy being the one who has to show up in the place of another. It is not easy being blamed for the loss, always being the bad guy, the bad word, the one ignored.But J, would you believe me if I told you that I was created to help heal? That when God spoke me into existence, I was tethered to words like peace and joy and hope and love? He said I was good. He said you would need me to understand Him, His love. I guess that's why I'm here, why I can't stay away. You're never going to stop missing the people you have loved and lost, you're never going to stop grieving over things big and small. I guess He hoped that I could always lead you back to Him, so you wouldn't have to be alone in your ache. He knows me better than anyone. Jesus was human, like you. And no one understands loss like He does."Easter recently passed, and while we certainty rejoice loudly in the glorious resurrection, we have to keep in mind what came first. We have to remember it was death that brought us back to life. It was grief. It was sorrow.So today I'm thankful. For the sorrow and the grief. For the pain and the confusion. For the emotions that make us smaller, for the ones that cause our knees to hit the ground and our tears to fall with us.I do not want to be afraid of them. I want to learn to welcome them, speak softly to them about what it was like when Jesus himself felt them, and allow them to take me deeper into the humanity of my beloved Savior.words by Jacqueline Winstead and photo by Sarah Mohan