Like a Weaned Child
It's been a challenging month
It’s been quiet over here because I am enveloped in grief.
My older cousin died unexpectedly this month. I believe grief took him, since he buried both his sister and his mother within the last three years, and they were the last of his family of origin. Feeling like an orphan, believing he was profoundly alone, took his will. His body followed his heart.
He left a wife and daughter, who I am praying for. May God fortify them and let them know that they are worth living for. Grief is tricky; it magnifies the losses and makes joy look further away than it really is. It’s not their fault and it’s not my cousin’s fault. Grief is formidable.
My cousin was buried this week, the day before my birthday. Death and life. Here and gone. This week has been an unbearably liminal space reminding me how vulnerable is the cord of life. It dangles, prone, easily cut.
As this month’s events have unfolded, I have been fumbling to write prayers for an upcoming book (it will be a book of prayers for Black women), while struggling to talk candidly to God about the weight of grief. Some will call this divine timing. I would respond that death is relentless, so talking with God about grief is inevitable.
This psalm bubbles up as the tone of my soul. It says:
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.1
Like a toddler desirous of the milk and warmth of closeness am I; yet painfully aware of the transition to a new stage of growth. The growth looks like feeding myself; it looks like the distance required by maturity. I miss the intimacy of innocence.
It feels lonely at the moment, calming and quieting myself. I write prayers as an exercise of banking hope for the future. I keep talking to God to fortify this flimsy cord of life, and in hopes that God talks back. I want sweet words of comfort that only God can communicate. I am hoping that if I cannot be nestled in the bosom of God, that God will hold my hand instead.
Unlike last year, I am walking into this new year with grief following me along with goodness and mercy.
I’m not content, but I am weaned and waiting, hanging on to the thread of life.
Here’s my post from my birthday last year, where I talk about the psalm of my life.
And a post from 2 years ago, when my birthday coincided with the beginning of a war that hasn’t yet ended.
Psalm 131:1-2, NIV
Lim 👏🏾 in 👏🏾 al 👏🏾
Grief is hitting me hard this week as well with a variety of friends / acquaintances going through different stages of loss - including a terminal Leukemia diagnosis, aggressive breast cancer treatments, and the accidental death of a three year old. Throw in the state of the world, and it's overwhelming.
All that to say - I see you. And I'm grieving with you. Praying for peace for both of us (and our friends / families as they mourn), and that we would run into the arms of our Father for comfort. Big hugs.