"Blessings Upon You as You Walk the Uneven Path of Grief and Loss"

I am frequently teased or queried about what has become a common phrase that I use to say grace over people who are grieving. That phrase, "Blessings over you and those you love as you walk the uneven path of grief and loss." As a therapist and as a professor, I have been familiar with processes of grief from personal and from academic perspectives. It was publication or maybe a professional presentation by an old friend, Dr. Terry Hargrave, who gave me information and perspective on loss. The grief we experienced is shaped by the degree of closeness to the person who has passed, the degree to which we anticipated the passing, and whether or not the one who has died has fulfilled his/her obligations.

Given those factors, as I have said in several eulogies, "There are as many faces of grief as there are people here in the sanctuary this afternoon." I remember saying those words at my mother's memorial service and again several years later at the memorial service for our old friend, Dr. Robert Hobbs.

It was in a conversation with a niece, my oldest brother's daughter, as we sat in her mom and dad's kitchen talking there in their communal space one afternoon. Everyone knew that her step-mother, her mother, was soon to pass as cancer was seen throughout her body on the latest scan. We were all sad and living in that anticipatory grief space.

As we sat across the table from each other, that phrase, "Blessings over you as you walk the uneven path of grief and loss," just rolled off my tongue. She was caught by surprise and asked what I meant. I don't remember exactly what I told her that day, but surely it was about dynamics of grief and all, those three things noted above, and that life as we live it is sort of a "path" and along that "path" we experience the ebbs and flows of grief. It's not a linear process by any means. On some occasions we are knocked to our knees by a memory or moment of intense grief, and then on another occasion we can be kneeling over in laughter at something funny our loved one said or did.

Some of us have a keen sense that our time on earth is nearing an end. Naturally, none of us know when or how. Frequently, the young die too soon and some of us pass having done what we were born to do. 

This notion captured my attention yesterday when a long time friend called. We had a friendly chat and as the conversation was ending, his comment to me was that "we needed to get together one last time." The comment was especially poignant as both us realized that our time on earth is coming to an end. To provide more "texture" to the conversation, he has been a friend and mentor and as close as brothers in the fight for justice for Black farmers. I am not prepared to say goodbye to him. We both agreed as we laughed, that "we are the aging of America." 

Dealing with death is quite a common phenomenon these days. Farmers we have met through the years were middle aged when we met them. We now call them legacy farmers. Middle aged men and women grow old and pass on to their ancestors. Names come to mind: Dorothy and Eddie Wise, Matthew and Florenza Grant, Richard Grant, and Harry Young just to name a few. Yesterday I got word that two men I have respected for decades have recently experienced strokes. 

Farming is no doubt a hard business, but it should not be harder for Black farmers. 

So, today, I am feeling the words of Isaiah the prophet as he described the "suffering servant," as a "man of sorrow and acquainted with grief." I feel terribly acquainted with grief today, as do many of you my readers. 

This was compounded by Representative Pearson from Tennessee as he is grieving the death of his brother by suicide. What a tragedy that is and how deep must be that pain. 

So, as life and death are realities of life, "Blessings upon all of us as we walk the uneven path of grief and loss."