Allowing Grief to Shape My Intention Moving Forward

November and December were marked with grief from three deaths in our family. In early December we lost my grandfather. He was the last grandparent I had living and had blessed us with 99 years. The end was swift and his final days I planned on flying back for turned into final hours. I didn’t make it. He was ready to go home. As he put it, he had lost his sweetheart, my grandmother, many years ago, and had never stopped loving her.

My grandfather planned his funeral 20-ish years ago. He wrote his obituary and eulogy. (What better way to make sure you know what is going to be said at your funeral?) Picked out his headstone. I’ve known since I was a child he would be buried in overalls and with the American flag inside the casket. We used to laugh about it. It was very typical Grandpa and endearing and embodying of our controlling tendencies.

But then we had to do it.

It wasn’t a joke anymore.

There I was, standing in front of my grandfather’s casket, looking at his overalls. Everything I knew was going to happen that felt so far off, was happening.

When I got the call my grandfather passed, I immediately started writing a funeral reading. My grandfather wasn’t one for words, but I suddenly had a burning passion to write the words I wanted everyone to take away when they attended my grandfather’s funeral. While he may have written out everything he wanted, there’s always a wild card. And he had a lot of wild card grandchildren. My grief turned into words and flooded the screen as I tried to explain to those who would be in attendance the great man we were honoring.

Grief Funeral Reading

Grief, at its core, is love persevering. It’s love with no place to go that reverberates between the tears you feel dropping into your lap, the burning lump in your throat, and the papercuts of everyday life you feel in your heart when a person is gone. Your love for them has no place to leave, so it has to stay inside of you and boils over into unimaginable pain, seen and unseen. 

But the challenge of grief is that while it never leaves, it’s up to us to share the love to those that didn’t have the privilege of knowing our loved one. They are the best of us. Whatever the best of what we are now and will be, that is what they were. 

There’s an honor in being able to love someone so much you grieve them. The honor to experience what they instilled in their family, community, and country. The ripple of love we feel and struggle to process right now didn’t start with him but was extended through him. We are those ripples continuing from hundreds of years ago. How lucky are we, out of all the people in the world we got to experience the love of him? What we do with those ripples is how we honor them.

So as the tears fall, the burning lumps build, remember it’s simply unexpressed love, reminding us of the ripple of love experienced because of one person.

I stood up and walked to the front for my funeral reading. What is it about death that motivates us to suddenly share how much someone means to us? To me it’s too little, too late, but yet we still hope our words can somehow reach the person who has left us.

The words being spoken about my grandfather’s life had one theme, hard work.

Hard work as a WWII veteran, farmer, dad, grandfather, historian, the list goes on and on. But then someone said it, “He believed in hard work not only in your career, but relationships.” That will never leave me. In that moment I felt my soul ignite. Yes, hard work applies to everything. That was it! Suddenly nothing else mattered. I work hard in my relationships, even ones on pause, because of what he taught us.

Where Do I Go From Here?

My ripple of love has a chance to continue. My grandfather’s life continues through those of us who knew him. I walked away from the funeral and straight into therapy with a takeaway I don’t want to lose. Intentionality and hard work. What does hard work look like in my career? Relationships? Life? My grandfather no longer has the chance to work hard which is why he instilled it in his children and grandchildren so it would live on.

It’s been a quiet time of the year and one that has allowed perhaps a little too much reflection. But the new year is here, time for action.

2021 allowed me to spend a lot of time clearing my life of a lot of distractions. I used to crave a complex life, I can’t explain why. But as I go through this season of grief, I’m realizing a few things. 2021 removed a lot of distractions from my life so I can focus. Focus on what matters to me and removing the peripheral distractions. Does having a complex life actually make anything better? No.

What Does Hard Work Look Like?

While not the traditional takeaway from a funeral, mine was this, what does hard work look like? I know people on their deathbed don’t wish they worked more, but in a way, I have a feeling I will regret it if I don’t work as hard as I know I can. In my career, relationships, life, heck, I don’t even know what life work there will be ahead of me. I just know I want to work hard at it. I’ve always taken pride in my family’s work ethic, but I walked away inspired and on fire.

I’m working with my therapist and a few career mentors to define what hard work looks like moving forward. How do you work hard at work, play and rest? What roadblocks are in your way? What do you want to remove from your life? (Example: Having any clothing that doesn’t fit into a uniform vibe causing me to spend more time getting ready in the morning.) Heck, even dealing with grief is hard work. Hard work is all around us. It’s my therapy theme.

I Hope You Find What You Need

How do you convey the magnificence of a person to a stranger through a funeral reading? A blog post? Hire a skywriter? I don’t know if I’m doing a good job telling you exactly the kind of man my grandfather was. Instead, maybe I’ll get a chance to show you through my career and other things we talk about here.

I hope if you’ve found this while searching for a funeral reading or grief post you find some comfort. Your person’s story doesn’t stop with them. It’s carried out through you and those who got to experience your loved one.

As one life ends, I try to pick up where it stopped. Continuing the legacy of what meant most to them. I’m not letting this grief pass without it helping me define my focus and purpose.

As I wipe away the tears welling up in my eyes, I know it’s unexpressed love for my grandfather.

You’re the next part of their story. Go boldly into the future.