The Stories We Keep

I've been thinking a lot about grief lately.

And fear.

And stories.

Which, I realize, might seem like three very different things to be thinking about on a Sunday morning, but stick with me.

It's funny how life sometimes places seemingly unrelated experiences right next to each other, and suddenly you find yourself connecting dots you didn't even know were there.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of losing a colleague who meant a great deal to our department.

Anniversaries are funny things, aren't they? A date on the calendar that might mean absolutely nothing to the rest of the world can carry so much weight for the people who remember.

I found myself thinking about that anniversary not only as someone who cared about this person, but also as someone who leads a team of people who cared about them, too.

I wondered how everyone would feel. Whether the day would be difficult. Whether memories would bring comfort or sadness. Whether grief might show up unexpectedly and take over someone's perfectly ordinary workday.

And I worried about how to navigate that. How to give people space to feel whatever they needed to feel while the rest of life, as it always does, kept moving.

Then, this past week, we traveled to be with family following the passing of my husband Blake's grandmother.

And I found myself sitting at a funeral.

My dad is a pastor, so I've attended more funerals throughout my life than I could possibly count. I've heard countless reflections about love, loss, faith, family, and the lives people leave behind.

But something struck me differently this time.

As I listened to family members share memories of their parents and grandparents, I noticed that nearly every story revolved around how those people made someone feel.

Of course, there were mentions of accomplishments. The things people had achieved, the lives they had built, the successes they had experienced.

But the stories people seemed most eager to share?

They were about love.

Being cared for. Being shown up for. Feeling safe, seen, and special.

Small moments that probably seemed entirely ordinary when they happened but had somehow become extraordinary in the remembering.

And then Blake's uncle said something that made the wheels in my head start turning.

"Grief feels a lot like fear."

Huh.

I had never thought about it that way.

Which is interesting, considering how many conversations about grief I've heard throughout my life.

and if I am also being 100% honest, I didn’t agree right away either.

But the more I thought about it, the more I could see what he meant.

Grief and fear can both make us feel terribly alone.

They can make us question our lives, our decisions, and everything we thought we understood about the world.

They can make us angry. Sad. Anxious. Withdrawn.

They can leave us feeling completely stuck while everyone else seems to be moving forward.

And apparently, they can even show up in our bodies in remarkably similar ways. The exhaustion, the sleeplessness, the racing thoughts, the physical weight of an emotion we can't quite figure out how to carry.

I've watched people I love struggle with grief so deeply that they seemed to lose themselves in it.

I've witnessed the anger, the sadness, the isolation, and the inability to move forward.

I always recognized those things as grief.

But I don't know that I ever considered how much fear might be tangled up in them.

The fear of forgetting.

The fear of living without someone.

The fear of what life is supposed to look like now.

Or even the fear of what happens when grief comes rushing back after you've finally started to feel okay again.

And suddenly I found myself thinking about that anniversary at work.

Because hadn't I been experiencing a version of that fear myself?

Not necessarily fear of the loss itself, but uncertainty about the grief that might come with remembering it.

Worrying about how it might affect people I care about. Whether it might overwhelm someone. Whether I'd know the right thing to say, or whether there was even a right thing to say.

And isn't that interesting?

Sometimes we're not just grieving a loss. We're afraid of what our grief might do to us.

So then, naturally, my brain wandered a little further.

If grief feels so much like fear, where do they differ?

I've been thinking that fear often lives in the what if.

What if something happens? What if everything changes? What if I lose someone I love?

And grief often lives in the what now.

Something has happened. Everything has changed. Someone is gone.

What now?

Obviously, life is never quite that simple. Grief has plenty of what-ifs, and fear can certainly leave us wondering what to do next.

But I keep coming back to that distinction.

Fear often asks us to face something we don't know.

Grief asks us to face something we wish weren't true.

And I don't know that either is something we simply get over.

Which brings me back to the stories.

Those little moments people shared at the funeral. The memories of a grandmother, a grandfather, a mother, a father.

The stories that made people smile through their tears.

And the memories of a colleague that still live in the people who worked alongside them.

Maybe stories are one of the ways we find our way through both grief and fear.

Not because remembering makes the loss disappear. It doesn't.

And not because every memory brings comfort. Sometimes remembering hurts.

But because the stories remind us that there was so much more than the ending.

There was a whole life.

There were ordinary Tuesdays. Inside jokes. Family traditions. Conversations. Kindnesses. Moments of laughter. Small gestures that someone else may not even have realized mattered.

There was love.

And somehow, those moments continue living in the people who experienced them.

Which brings me to one more thing I've been thinking about.

We're all creating those stories right now.

We spend so much of our lives worrying about accomplishments, deadlines, responsibilities, success, and whether we're doing enough or becoming enough.

But when someone gathers to remember us someday, what stories will they tell?

Will they remember our job titles? The projects we completed? The number of things we checked off our to-do lists?

Maybe.

But I suspect they'll remember how we made them feel.

The time we made them laugh when they desperately needed it. The way we showed up. The traditions we created. The little things we did that made an ordinary day better.

The moments we probably didn't even realize were becoming memories.

And I find something incredibly moving about that.

Because maybe the stories we keep aren't just how we remember the people we've lost.

Maybe they're also how we continue to carry their love into the lives we're still living.

I don't have some profound answer about grief or fear. I certainly haven't figured out how to navigate either one perfectly.

But I am grateful for the moments that make me stop and think differently.

And this week, I'm especially grateful for the reminder that the smallest moments in our lives are often the ones that leave the biggest impressions.

The little joys, if you will.

So I'll leave you with a question this Sunday.

When you think about someone you love, whether they're still here or no longer with you, what's one little moment you always remember?

Not their greatest accomplishment or the most impressive thing they ever did.

Just a moment that made you feel loved.

I'd really love to hear your story.

Until next time,

Joy 💗

The Little Joys of Art