Humming the Invisible

When Grief Becomes Wisdom

A dear friend has lost her husband. Another lost a son to the opioid crisis. And even here in the Clare family, we’ve lost moms, faced serious health calamities and even lost our dearly beloved old Ford truck to a car crash.

Only a few years ago, these same disasters and changes might have totaled me like that old truck.

These days, although I’m rather shocked by my own reflection (where did that waggly skin come from?), I’m not falling apart. Sure, I still get knocked down by everything from personal losses to the visceral tension over our nation’s future. I hate change just like everybody else. I still grieve with all these losses and some days I’m a mess. OK, mess is my usual state.

Yet somehow, there is a hum beneath my every living moment, a low, deep thrum that holds up my worst days and says, like Julian of Norwich, that all shall be well. All shall be well.

To be honest, I don’t know how I got here. In my youth, I was such a worrier that the night before a dental procedure, I’d jab my gums with my fingernail—so I wouldn’t react when the Novocain needle bit me. I’d procrastinate on tasks I knew would be unpleasant—like calling the utility company to beg for an extension. I remember walking past the phone, jabbed in the heart with guilt, knowing that sooner or later the job must be done.

When my adoptive father died young, I dreamed for weeks after that he’d suddenly come back to life. If he’d really sat up in the bed and started talking, I probably would’ve fainted. But I feared the permanent change of death enough to keep my dreams hoping that it wasn’t true.

Let invisible wisdom carry you through.

I doubt I’m unusual. Denial is part of the grieving process. Do we fail to recognize that every change in the stages of our lives creates waves of grief that we too easily dismiss?

Whether we mourn the loss of our parents, a spouse, a son, a truck or just the loss of a swimsuit-worthy body, we often don’t make much progress in moving past that denial stage. I used to go back and forth between denying the obvious and being furious at the change. I couldn’t cry, but the pit in my stomach and my stupid twitchy left eye reminded me of all that I’d lost.

And that’s why, in the latter quarter of my life, I’ve turned to invisible wisdom to carry me through.

This kind of knowing is beyond my understanding. A hidden voice or equation or musical progression assures me that when I can no longer change my circumstances, I must change myself.

The changes often astound me—they’re so unlike anything I’d think to do. Instead of marching over to a change I dislike and demanding it bow to my will, the nonstop bass line urges me to look at the world through a lens of love. When sorrow threatens to pull me apart, that same something refills the deepest parts of me with a peace I can’t explain.

When I turn to righteous indignation (because I’m always right), it whispers that I can allow others to be wrong. I don’t have to convince the world to see things my way. I can leave the door open to learn something new, or to expand my tolerance for all those wrong people.

Sounds easy but it’s not.

All day long I still fight my penchant for refashioning the universe according to Linda. My ego tells me that I must rule the world. If you thought the same thing, I’m sorry to inform you that God agrees with me. My version of God likes everything I like and hates all the same stuff too.

But when I’ve tilted at windmills until I’m exhausted, a mighty wind tiptoes in and I find myself saying, “Teach me. Show me the way.” And background noise turns into that hum, the vibration that keeps the stars shining and hearts beating.

These invisible melodies, far lower than any ear could hear, register in hearts that know loss, grief, change. This simple song knows that when love touches suffering, mercy is the result.

Even if my hearing fades, I’ll still feel the hum in my bones, and it makes me tremble with love. I no longer need to fear change but ride it as a laboring mother rides each contraction. The pain is temporary. A deep and wide ribbon of light goes before us and behind us and under and over us as we learn wisdom from each change.

Yes, with every major change it’s different and I grieve for what I’ve lost. But Wisdom tells me again and again that all will be well if I only listen for that life and love-giving hum. Teach me, I whisper. Show me the way.