I went to visit a man who had visited our church. That was something we did in that Baptist church in the 70s, pay a visit to whomever comes to visit us, to see if they want to join or if we can be of service to them in some way. I was a young, enthusiastic, and naïve 25 year-old youth minister. I did not like making visits like this, but I did anyway.

He answered the door and invited me in, I introduced myself and stated the nature of my visit. Instead of sitting in his living room to talk, we went to his back yard and talked as we walked.

swing setI discovered his son had recently been killed in Viet Nam. I’m sure his son was no older than I was. We walked around the swing set his son had played on as a child. As he talked he cried a bit, and he expressed his anger at the whole war, at the people making decisions about the war, and at what had happened to his son. His grief and bitterness were raw.

I could not identify with his grief as a father, and it did not occur to me at the time that it could easily have been me in Viet Nam rather than his son.

I don’t remember what I said to him that afternoon, but I’m sure it was stupid. I’m sure it was an attempt to provide some kind of explanation, which is a poor substitute for consolation.

I never saw the man again, but he remains with me. As I have been writing about gratitude and grief, I realized this morning that I have been writing as someone whose grief and loss have been in the “normal” range, whatever that is. I have never lost everything in a tornado or fire or flood. I have never had a child or spouse abducted or killed. I have not had to live in terror. I have not yet lost functioning in ways I can no longer do the things I enjoy. Therefore, I risk saying stupid things to you as I did to the grieving father.

I do believe the task of grief is to rebuild one’s life around the loss so that the loss becomes a vital part of your life story and structure, but it no longer defines who you are. I have not yet had the kind of grief that seems bigger than my life, that subsumes my life. I assume, I hope that the goal of a centered life is to find the path of gratitude even in that kind of darkness.