Question: My mother-in-law died a year ago, and my wife is still really struggling with her absence. We know she’s in heaven, but my wife depended on her mom to be a sounding board and encouragement in ways I can’t replicate. How should a Christian deal with grief that just won’t seem to fade?
Answer: One problem with grief is that there are no clearly defined timeframes for recovery. It sounds like your wife and her mother had a wonderfully blessed relationship. Your wife probably feels as if her mother took a part of her with her when she left.
We’re all told the first year is the hardest, and I agree that each holiday, birthday, and season change apart from our loved one feels cruel and unrelenting. Sometimes, the second year isn’t much better; at best, it just isn’t much worse. As we stumble from darkness to light there is an uncomfortable period in between, when we experience hope and hopelessness together. These two disparate emotions cause considerable emotional friction.
Imagine hope and hopelessness as two giant turning mechanical cog wheels. When the two cogs move too closely together, the intersecting collision sparks anxiety. However exhausting and confusing this grey ambivalent period is, it is an important and necessary part of the healing process. The light will come. There is enormous comfort and joy knowing your mother-in-law is in the presence of Jesus right now, right this very minute. Vital to recovery is collecting these sporadic glimmers of God’s light, minute by minute; gather each precious memory, gratefully holding tight to his promises.
I imagine you have your own complicated grief. You have lost a treasured mother-in-law and your wife as you once knew her. With God’s help, your wife will return to you, but she must return to herself first. Too often we put grief on a scale and compare one person’s grief to another’s. This is a mistake. You both are grieving; I encourage you to discuss your grief with each other without worrying that she is grieving more.
Mark McCormick is director of clinic operations for Illinois Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services.