„Please,
don’t be too much upset with me. In my heart is a prayer for you, that the Lord
would open your heart and somehow give you to grieve after your grandfather and
your parents the right way. So, there, I love you and I pray for your heart“.
This was a note I received on my facebook profile yesterday.
I am a
Pastor, a priest; and part of my job is doing funeral services. I don’t believe
a priest is the one who sends people to heaven or to hell, nor that church has
that monopole. The monopole belongs to Jesus Christ. Through Christ we receive
salvation, so at funerals it is not me who decide where one goes; it depends on
their own decision while they were still living. What I try is through prayers,
through sermon, to comfort people, to help them in their grief. But the
question was how do I grieve my own griefs?
My mother
died in a car accident when I was 18. In our dysfunctional family everything
stopped that moment, we were prohibited any joy (what if our neighbors hear us
laughing???), but at the same time, we (my sister and I) were not allowed to
grieve or cry, either… We were grieving like zombies, like we were the ones who
died.
When my grandmother
had died, I was away, on a trip, in England. I remember a moment, Victoria
Station, London, UK, when received a text, letting me know that my granny had
died. She was a tough, not very emotional woman, under whose influence I was
raised from very early age. We say “granny’s grandchild”, as special connection
between a grandchild and a grandmother. I did love my granny, although she was
difficult to love, not even neighbors liked her. But I did. And couldn’t grieve
for her. When I came home, the funeral was over, my sorrow was buried in my
work, in a way it was skipped.
My father died two years ago. Our
relation was never good, we were not close, I often struggled with my anger
feelings toward him – for failed expectations, for not being present, for not
solving problems. When he died I cried after him, but in my heart was (perhaps
still is) anger, too. Those days of grieving I have spent sorting blue
envelopes left in his room, sent by Novi Sad court, analyzing what will come on
me – what debt, what trial, what trouble was left as a heritage. Anger ate my sorrow.
I’ve been thinking recently how, until
now I haven’t, not once, grieved sincerely, from the depth of my heart.
Something always meddled, stopped me from grieving. Deep in my heart I was
aware that this is not good, it is not human. I even considered that I’ve been in
a way crippled in my youth so I cannot grieve? Was my grieving, when my mother
died, numbed by repression, by conditioning me not to show it? This was the
reason why my brother prayed for sorrow and grieve.
Grandfather lived with me in house for
last two years. Never before we had some relationship, but after his near-death
experience it started developing. We had our Saturday 8AM ritual - driving him
to buy some cat food, then groceries, some milk and bread… once a week visiting
his sister… taking him to medical check-ups… conversations in car… and then,
one night he somehow stepped on a safety-pin, and it couldn’t heal. Gangrene
and six months of struggle, then a toe amputation, hope that doctors would
approve vein operation – but instead a kidney failure was discovered. And then,
day by day he started fading. As if all hope was gone from him, and his body
started failing him. Once disciplined to take a medicine on time, in minute,
waiting by a clock for exactly 08:00 (I used to tease him that a second or two
later wouldn’t harm him), he started refusing any medication. He wouldn’t eat,
not even after all my nudging…. Then his kidneys collapsed and I had to leave
him in the hospital. For few of his last days he wouldn’t even communicate,
lying in his hospital room, eyes closed. Only when my sister or I would visit,
a nod meant ‘yes’, and moving shoulders ‘I don’t understand’. One by one his
organs were giving away but he was always a fighter, he wouldn’t let his life
go. I prayed with him once more, saying to him ‘It is ok to let it go, you’ll
be better with God’.
He died as he had lived, not being a
burden. Waited for my birthday to pass, for our child to return from a trip,
for my wife to preach on Sunday service, and when all important events were
finished, our grandfather died. Not being a burden, as if taking care not to
spoil something. Quiet, gentle, my grandfather. My sister wrote a post: “Gone
is my good cat tamer, a doctor for household appliances, a nut picker, a partner
for homemade tomato juice, a flattener of old rusted nails, a good, quiet, shy,
and best grandpa Janko.”
And he left giving me a gift – a gift of
grieving. I didn’t even realize that grieving is a gift. It hurts, but it also
purifies. In a way it is beautiful. God has given us those two years, since
returning him from death, to bond us, so I would have someone to grieve after.
It heals my disappointments, hurts of past… Sorrow is a gift, so I have
learned. I write this grieving, at times going out to cry a bit, but I have to
say this too “Grandpa Jankic, thank you for the gift of grieving.”
