Sorrow and Rejoicing
We do not grieve like those without hope, but we still grieve.
It’s been almost two days, and I’ve been trying to find the words to process our loss of Jordan. I keep coming back to sorrow and rejoicing.
Although my mind replays his smile, the softness in his mannerisms, and his laugh, which was often a borderline giggle, I also know the physical pain that kept him home (and shielded me from now holding memories of his suffering).
The bulk of my memories include Jordan not as a young child zipping about, but of a man siting in a camping chair, a patio chair, a folding chair, or worn out basement furniture. Family reunions, Krista’s birthday, my kids’ graduation parties, and Richardson family Christmas: he was there for it.
I am wrecked by his brother’s words, “Today he has joined dad, and Jalit, and Harlee, and so many others who have gone on before.” I smile and ugly cry because he is having a family reunion and we are disjointed and left with a gaping wound.
And I find myself longing to be with the ones who don’t need me to explain the joy and the aching.
Back in 2017, I wrote:
There are people in my world who understand the word defying emotion I feel… particularly now, shortly after Mother’s Day.
It is playing cards and laughing about a song written for a funeral.
It is the melody of “It is Well With My Soul.”
It is an unused diaper bag in the closet.
It is Thanksgiving with a smaller crowd and 4th of July fireworks by the pond.
It is a rundown barn and buttered rolls.
It is
“Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
Putting words to the thoughts and feelings cause them to become shallow, broken, and incomprehensible.
I need a cousins’ run. I need the exertion, the sweat, and the simple joy of being with those to whom I never have to explain.
Today I am weirdly wishing for a funeral. I long to stand among those who loved Jordan and let the melody of an old hymn envelop me as we share in the bittersweet rejoicing that Jordan is home.
It is somehow fitting that instead I will sit in an extra folding chair at my in-laws with almost thirty people sharing thanks, bickering, eating, and laughing.