The "Touch" During Grief

I received a business envelope in the mail this week from the Mutual of Omaha Insurance company addressed to my first wife (who has been in heaven 7 ½ years). The front of the envelope read, “Here’s that second chance you hoped for Ann Huntington Burwick.” The irony of the message was blatant. There is no second chance after death, she doesn’t need insurance anymore. Her name needed to be espunged from their mailing list. But receiving the envelope triggered memories of her death and the succeeding weeks.

It began on a Saturday morning. She made her usual phone calls to our three children. They later told me that she had never seemed so animated and excited about life.
I came home about noon from basketball practice. She had a twisted look on her face and I jokingly said, "you're not having a stroke on me are you?" Within moments her speech was slurred, then incoherent. The ambulance arrived. Rushed her to the hospital. At 7:15 p.m. a brain aneurysm propelled her into the presence of Jesus.
How exciting for her, how devastating for those of us she left. I'm so grateful for the administration and faculty of the college where she and I were working. Many were by my side in the hospital waiting room. No cheap words of advice. No easy Bible verse clichés. Just love, support and mutual tears.
I've learned that grief is a language without words, so grief is untouched by advice. Words are not needed, touch is. Touch comes from a person who listens reflectively in a nurturing way, encouraging one to express thoughts and feelings. Touch comes from mutual tears which is the most productive language of grief.

A missionary friend provided touch with a poem she wrote for me:
I am hurt, Lord! I don't want courage or a blithe spirit or faith or hope or charity.
I don't want to fight or even stand and turn the other cheek to fate. I want to run!
To cringe first, then to run and hide myself at the back gate of hell, despairing, flatly wrinkled like a pricked balloon.
I am hurt, Lord! Don't quote Holy Writ to me, Don't even say "Lo, I am with you..."
I know all of that and it doesn't matter for the moment.
Just hold me, Lord, tight fisted with a grip like all eternity. You do it!
I can't hold on, not even with one finger.
I, to whom others run for counsel and the handclasp of faith and hope and charity, Hold on, Lord! It will pass, but for the moment, hold! (Yvonne - Thailand)
That's touch!
For the next three months it felt like a part of my body had been ripped away. The grief process allowed for some good times, many moments of emotional ambush and then a periodic avalanche of pain.
I don't understand why God took Ann when she seemed to be at her prime, at her peak of enjoying life, when our marriage had worked through much entanglement and we were really enjoying each other. I don't understand, but I trust Him, because He's my Abba PaPa. He is in control and wants the best for me and He promises "no good thing will He withold from those who walk uprightly."
That awareness didn’t make the pain go away but it gave me hope found in the promise of Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all peace and joy as you trust in Him; that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I was experiencing 2 Corinthians 6:10, “Our hearts ache, yet we have the joy of the Lord.”
Loss. Pain. GOD'S Touch. Pain/Joy. Ray burwick