The Day Before...

Today, May 24, is the day before.

It is the day before the day that marks nine years since PJ died. It is two days before my birthday. It sits in the middle of a strange and painful stretch of time where the calendar seems to hold its breath, and I find myself doing the same. May 24 is not the anniversary itself, but it knows what is coming. My body knows too.

I think my body knows every day of the month of May in ways it shouldn’t have to.

That is one of the strange things about grief. It is not always polite enough to wait for the actual date. It starts whispering ahead of time. It settles into your shoulders, your stomach, your chest, your sleep, your patience. It shows up in your forgetfulness, your irritability, your numbness, your tears, or your inability to cry at all. It’s the ache before the ache. The dread before the remembering. The long shadow before the day itself.

Nine years is a long time and no time at all.

That is another strange thing about grief. Time doesn’t move through it cleanly. The world counts years in a straight line, but grief doesn’t always follow that line. Some memories stay close to the surface no matter how many birthdays, holidays, sermons, grocery lists, family dinners, and ordinary weekdays have passed since. Some things become part of you, not because you are choosing to live in the past, but because love and trauma leave marks the body does not forget.

I have been wrestling with this lately, because there are people who do not know what to do with grief that lasts. Some people get uncomfortable when others still carry sorrow years later. They want grief to become quieter, smaller, more manageable, and preferably less inconvenient for everyone else in the room. Even in Christian spaces, I have heard ideas that make grief feel like something we should be able to pray away if we are faithful enough. Some will call certain grief thoughts rumination and warn that they are sinful if they keep returning.

I want to say this carefully and clearly: I do not believe that.

I believe there are thoughts that can become destructive. I believe our minds can get caught in cycles that need care, support, prayer, wisdom, counseling, and sometimes very practical tools to help us come up for air. I am not dismissing that. But I do not believe the recurring memories of traumatic loss are automatically “sin.” I do not believe a grieving mother remembering the day her son died is failing God because the thoughts return. I do not believe the body’s remembrance of pain is something we can simply shame, scold, or spiritualize away. What I do believe is that remembered pain is remembered by every cell in our bodies.

The day and the way PJ died were traumatic for all of us. There are things we saw, cared for, witnessed, spoke, heard, and experienced that were not easy. None of it was forgettable. None of it became less real because years passed. And none of it can be prayed away as though the goal of faith is to become untouched by sorrow.

The body remembers.

Not always hysterically. Not always visibly. Not always in a way anyone else would recognize from the outside. Sometimes it remembers quietly, cellularly, in that deep inner place that says, “I know this day. I know this smell. I know this season. I know what happened here, and I did not like it then, and I do not like it now.”

That is not faithlessness. That is being human.

Scripture never asks us to pretend loss is small. Lamentations says, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.” It does not rush past remembering. It names it. The author writes, “I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.” Only then does he say, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed.”

I love that word consumed, because some days that is exactly what grief threatens to do. It does not always mean I am falling apart on the outside. Sometimes it means my thoughts are crowded. Sometimes it means I am quieter than normal. Sometimes it means I am trying to figure out how to be present in a room while also living inside a memory no one else can see.

And then, layered on top of the grief, comes the ridiculous pressure to manage everyone else’s comfort. I catch myself thinking, “How can I not be too much? How can I make this easier for everyone else? How emotional am I allowed to be before people get uncomfortable?” As if grief were a hosting problem. As if my job were to arrange the room so no one has to trip over my sorrow.

But grief is not rude for existing.

Tears are not too much. Silence is not too much. Needing space is not too much. Remembering is not too much. Saying his name is not too much. Having a hard day nine years later is not too much.

The day before he died was also the day before I had to learn how to keep living after the worst had happened. And then, two days later, it was my birthday. There is something almost absurd about that. Death pressed up against celebration. Mourning pressed up against cake. The end of his life pressed up against the marking of mine.

How do you prepare for your own birthday when you are losing the child whose birth made you a mother?

I still do not know.

Maybe you don’t prepare. Maybe you breathe. Maybe you eat when someone puts food in front of you. Maybe you let people sit near you even when they cannot fix anything. Maybe you sleep when your body finally gives out. Maybe you stare at the wall. Maybe you pray one honest sentence and let that be enough.

Psalm 34 says, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” It does not say the Lord is near after the brokenhearted tidy themselves up. It does not say He is near once the crushed in spirit have processed appropriately, stopped crying, stopped remembering, stopped circling the hard thoughts, or made everyone else more comfortable.

He is near to the brokenhearted.

That means He is near on May 24. Near on May 25. Near on May 26. Near in the memories. Near in the numbness. Near when the tears come. Near when they do not. Near when I can pray with confidence. Near when all I can say is, “Lord, I hate this.”

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” He did not say blessed are those who get over it quickly. He did not say blessed are those who make grief palatable. He did not say blessed are those who only mourn in ways that make sense to other people.

Blessed are those who mourn.

So, on this day before, I am letting grief be grief. I am not trying to make it prettier than it is. I am not trying to prove that I am healing well enough for anyone else’s timeline. I am not trying to pray away what needs to be held tenderly in the presence of God.

I am remembering.

I am breathing.

I am letting myself be human.

And I am trusting, however imperfectly, that the God who was near then is near now. The God who held PJ is holding us. The God who did not abandon us in the valley is still walking with us through the long shadow of it.

The day before is heavy.

But even here, we are not alone.

Photo by Rahul Pandit on Unsplash