The first of those services was last night with our Maundy Thursday service. The Last Supper of Christ before He was betrayed into the hands of the people that would eventually crucify him.
There isn't anything fancy about the service. We have the service of corporate confession and absolution. We hear the sermon. We take communion. But for me, the most powerful part of the service is towards the end. The ladies that take care of the altar come forward and while we responsively recite the 22nd Psalm, they strip the altar of everything. They take off the paraments and the cloths. They remove the communion stuff. They pull the candles off of the shelf. I usually make it through four or five verses before I am choked up and can no longer recite with the congregation. Seeing the pillar symbols of our church stripped from the altar and taken away is hard for me. My heart grieves for my Savior, the man who gave up His life so that I may live. This symbolic action hurts my core and I feel ashamed and exposed and filled with grief. I know it will all be back in its place come Easter morning, but reflecting during that time is powerful for me.
But as I reflect on those emotions, I feel like there is more going on in those moments for me. Especially in the last few years. Watching the ladies take our altar apart, one piece at a time, is similar to how the grief process works in my head. For me, it's symbolic of what goes on inside the human body when one suffers a loss.
After Brian died, I felt like grief was eating me alive. It was exhausting and painful and devastating. Each memory, each moment, each little act stripped away another layer of who I was. Tears flowed and drained me of all life and I watched as pieces of who I used to be were carried away and taken somewhere else. Certain routines were out of the question. Certain smells drove me to tears. Memories flooded in and I worked hard to push them out quickly. Piece my piece, the old Tammy was stripped bare, my heart and soul lying open and exposed and terrified of what came next. Similar to my thoughts watching them strip our church bare...what's next? What more can they take? What more could I bear?
So we sit and watch them pick apart the church, waiting to see what they start to disassemble next. And when they are done, we leave in silence. A somber moment of sadness and confusion and heartache.
I watched people and things and events pick me apart. Leaving me bruised and broken and unsure if I would ever find myself again. Sadness and confusion and heartache.
But we have the promise of Easter morning just around the corner. We only have to hold on and keep marching through time and we'll wake up Sunday morning to "He has risen!" We'll make it through the dark time with prayer and praise and knowing that better is coming.
And that's how we survived grief also. We only had to hold on and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Knowing that better times were coming, we just had to hang in there. Better was coming even though it felt like nothing could be better ever again.
Sunday morning we'll arrive at church to everything back in it's normal place. The paraments will be back in their spot, the communion stuff will be ready to accept us at the table. The stuff that was walked out on Thursday will be back for Easter.
This is where the grief process is a little different. You can't get back to that normal state. It won't feel the same or look the same or even be the same. But if you hang on and keep trudging through the darkness, it will be better! Different...and still with moments of grief. But better.
I think it's important at this point to mention that as part of my grief process I got rid of anything that had any memory of Brian attached to it. I pawned our wedding rings, threw away my wedding dress and other trinkets, sold his car...I wanted nothing of his.
My mom asked me the other day if I had bought an Easter dress. I told her I hadn't. That I'd probably just wear something in my closet. Last night we came home from the service and I decided I should probably look and see what I might be wearing. As I was digging through I found this cream-colored dress with pink and green flowers - perfect for Easter but I wasn't sure where it had come from. I pulled it out and gasped. This dress was the dress that Brian had bought me on our very first date together. I immediately and quietly sobbed into the dress and quickly dried my tears as Amelia came bounding in.
"Oh mommy! What is THAT?"
"It's a dress..."
"Where did you get it?"
"Your daddy bought it for me a long time ago."
"You should wear that for Easter!"
"Oh, it probably doesn't fit me."
"Try it on!"
I reluctantly unzipped the zipper, knowing I was much smaller when I met. Brian. I stepped into the dress and pulled it up. I told Amelia it wasn't going to work. She told me to turn around and she zipped it up quickly. She gently tied the ties to the side and told me over and over again how beautiful I looked. It fit.
And just like Maundy Thursday, the grief and heartache are swept away and the newness and life of Easter morning greeted me. A new dress. An old chapter of my life brought full circle. I clutched my necklace against my heart and sobbed as Amelia bounded back out of my room. Oh how I miss him at times. And oh how I miss the dream of what our life could have been at times. But oh how I cherish the new life that I have with my girls and the future we have made for ourselves.
We wait with anticipation for the empty tomb on Easter morning. And we wait for when the church is returned to how it should all be. And I'll wear that dress. Easter morning - what a perfect time to resurrect an old dress in memory of an old life, with the anticipation of the new life that is waiting! Praise be to God! He is risen indeed!
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