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In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
Psalm 18:6 (ESV)

The moment you remember his smell and it brings you to your knees…

I’m sure I’m not alone. Many of us have had this moment, right?

Smell is part of the brain’s limbic system, sometimes called the emotional brain, because it’s intricately tied to memories and feelings. Smells can take us back to childhood and mom or grandma’s cooking, like hot buttered biscuits and bacon, or pot roast after church.

Fresh cut grass or fall leaves…

The smell of chlorine in a pool or an ocean breeze…

A newborn baby or their diapers

Smells can take us to good and bad places in an instant. I still struggle with the smell of hospitals.

But the unexpected smell of him…

Last week, as I was going through some of my sister’s things, I came across one of his shirts mixed in with hers. Mind you, dealing with her very recent death was my focus for that day. I had taken many of her T-shirts, for a close widow friend to use in making teddy bears for me and my family. I was the one who picked the shirts out of her closet and bagged them up, but I guess during the middle of my grief over losing her, I had forgotten about his Imagine shirt. My husband, Daryl and my sister Lisa were close. After his passing, she took several things he loved, as her own. Now, in this pile of shirts I was sorting, there it was. BAM…..

I remember thinking, just for a moment, “I wonder if I can still smell”…as I held it up to my nose and took a deep breath, I cried out and had to catch myself. Not a cry of words, but a guttural, tear-filled cry of complete disbelief, shock, and GRIEF. There he was and all I could do was cry out. The grief wave overwhelmed me and almost took me to my knees.

I have no idea why I decided to take this project on that day or that week because it was also the week I was facing the fourth anniversary of Daryl’s death. So, there I was in the middle of an ENORMOUS wave of grief compounded by grief.

Compound grief-multiple losses, one death triggering memories of another.

It’s almost unbearable, and if we don’t have time to process and deal with the losses, grief compressed into unresolved grief and pain, can leave us immobile, fearful, and bitter. Life is unfair, and grief upon grief is beyond tragic and terrifying. Even when we do have years to deal with and move through our grief, more loss is just HARD.

So how can we cope?

Dependence.

Dependence upon the one who conquered death.

Dependence upon the one who arose from the grave and will restore His own.

Does this work? Is it truth? Yes, on Daryl’s actual going home date, I made it through, for the first time, without overwhelming sorrow. God filled me with His joy and peace, as I depended upon Him and the prayers of many. Death truly was swallowed up by victory and all praise goes to the Lord, Jesus Christ! Set Him as your focus, Sisters, He is real and death will not have the final word.

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 25:8 (ESV)

Father, help us to remember the victory for our lives and our stories have already been won by Christ on the cross at Calvary. Help us process and walk through our tears, fears, and losses with the hope of You in our hearts. By the power of Your Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth we pray, Amen.