I am currently working on a final exam of grief.

The teacher is always silent during the final exam.

As a teacher, I know this well. When your students write an exam, your teaching is done and you hope you have prepared your students well for the exam. And then you get to mark them and see how effective your teaching was. Marking exams was one of my favourite parts of teaching.

I am currently taking my own final exam.

A final exam of grief.

In my hard years of grief, I had a lovely teacher who was my friend and counsellor. She listened to my grief story and helped me learn how to grieve. Everything I learned about grief, I learned from her.

And this past summer, she developed an aggressive cancer.

She was the last person I ever thought would develop cancer. I always thought we would grow old together, becoming little old ladies who help each other after our husbands passed and our kids moved out.

Shock and disbelief overtook me as I watched her change. Each day  I saw her, she was smaller and quieter, and spoke more slowly. It ripped my heart out.  I kept my tears for home, I didn’t want to waste precious time with her crying.

I visited her as much as I could while she battled cancer. During the first visit after her diagnosis, she excitedly told me, “I get to go see Jesus!”. She was excited and sincere. But my heart wasn’t ready. I mean, I needed her and so did her large family, especially her faithful and loving husband.

Day after day, she lost weight and her speech slowed.

It was a horrible time of being caught between two realities: a life of suffering or a life without my friend. That’s what anticipatory grief is: balancing two agonizing realities at once.

I called out to God and asked Him to strengthen me and give me wisdom. But it was so hard to know which way to pray. If my friend was not the subject of the prayers, she would have given wise counsel about how to pray. It was the first of many hard lessons for me this summer: my friend won’t be here to give me direction and advice.  I would take this final exam of grief without my teacher’s help.

I thanked her with meager, insignificant words for the massive, important impact she had on my life. Words are never big enough to convey a heart full of gratitude. Each time I left her side to return home, I reminded her how much I loved her, in case I didn’t get another chance. I’m sure it was annoying, but I had to do it.

And then she fell asleep. Her teaching assignment was over.

And my final exam of grief was presented to me.

She slept while the house filled with people praying, begging God for a miracle. How would she have wanted me to respond? This was the final exam of questions. Fortunately, I knew one answer: pray.

She was so excited to see Jesus face-to-face and it was hard to pray to keep her here. I prayed that God would be close to all of us and I surrendered my will to God. God loves her even more than I do, and He would ensure she’s loved.

With a house full of people, life, tears and prayers, she slept. I watched her and whispered to her, wondering where her soul really was. Was her soul already in heaven and she was watching down on us, or was her soul quietly waiting to be taken home to heaven? I will never know.

She died on a Sunday.
The LORD’s day.

How fitting.

She was only sick for 56 days before she went home to be with the LORD. If our love could have overpowered God’s plan for her life (and death), she would still be here. But God’s plan is stronger than our plans. That’s a hard lesson.

And now I have to grieve for her, using the lessons she taught me about grief. She taught me:

• not to run from the pain, but to be okay, staying in the pain.
• the pain of grief will change over time, but never disappear entirely.
• grief is beautiful because it is proof that the love was real and important.
• live feelings cannot be buried because they’ll come up somehow, probably when you least want them to.
•  to be honest about my feelings about grief and to give them all up to Jesus.
•  by example that community can help support a grieving person, and so can friendship.

More lessons are currently lost in the dusty and grief-filled filing cabinets of my brain. They will appear when I need them, now that I’m taking this final exam of grief without my teacher.

My teacher is silent and I must think about all the things she taught me about grief and faith. I must apply everything she’s taught me in order to grieve well.  I never thought she would die. It sounds silly, because I knew she wasn’t immortal. It has reminded me that we don’t have each other forever. (Check out my blog on the temporary life of beautiful flowers https://kathleentempleton.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=56&action=edit&classic-editor)  Life can change with neck-breaking speed and without warning. The peace in my soul lies in thinking of how she lived her life: for Jesus. I know in my heart that she is thrilled to be there and is probably meeting many people she is responsible for sharing the faith with.

This final exam of grief will probably last a lifetime, but I think she’s taught me well.