The Pains of Childbirth

Every time I watch an episode of Friends in which someone gives birth (which is more episodes than you might think), I find myself overwhelmed with disgust at the outrageousness of the fairy tale they have concocted to portray an experience with which (surely!) a large portion of their audience is somewhat acquainted. I can only calm my spirits by convincing myself that they filmed these episodes on days when all the women who had actually given birth were mysteriously absent from the set. 

I'm not sure why it's that particular misrepresented life experience that strikes such a wrong chord with me. After all, what is a sit-com if not one string of completely fabricated "life experiences" after another? I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the discrepancy between the TV version and my real life version of childbirth is so clear and so huge - and also that this particular life experience means so much more to me than the first dates and job interviews and ruined dinner parties that make up the rest of these kinds of shows. TV does not (always? often?) mirror life. We all know this. And yet we are still often duped...

At Mrs. Rose's funeral, ten years ago now, I grieved with some control throughout the service but lost it a bit with some unexpected sobbing when I encountered my childhood minister in the receiving line afterwards. I still feel quite embarrassed by my behavior then; it's not as if I was related to her or even as if I had a decent reason to break down in front of Bill Sherrill. But at the time, I remember seeing Bill and knowing that he'd known Rose as a friend, much as I had, and knowing that he would miss her as I would, and I just lost it. Rose had lived a long and wonderful life and deserved to go Home, but my heart broke even so.

Not too long after that, we attended another funeral with my home church, and this time it was for our childhood friend, Dirk, who died of cancer at an unjustly young age. I loved Dirk but was not as close to him as my brother and the others in their age group at church, and so I attended that funeral as much in support and love of my brother and other friends as anything. But then after hugging the family and heading to the back of the auditorium, I encountered our old youth minister Dean Campbell, and again the tears began to flow. This time, I mourned the hard deaths - both Dirk and Dean's wife, Tammy, who'd passed away unexpectedly only a few years before. It was a little less embarrassing because I certainly wasn't the only one mourning publicly, but I still scolded myself later for losing control like that.

I think now that I just didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know that this is how grief works in real life. I'd watched it on movies and TV, and there were always somber faces and measured tears, but the sobbing took place back at home and in isolation. And it was reserved for close family only - never did acquaintances or even church friends become undone. What a lie.

Grief isn't like that. It comes unexpectedly. It lasts for years - but not necessarily as an ever-present cloud of doom. It happens both to the sons, daughters, parents, spouses - and to the friend from long ago. It's tears that flow when a song comes on the radio. It's a memory that has nothing to do with sadness but that brings sobs nonetheless. It's reading Revelation 7 and seeing familiar faces in that multitude before the Throne.

It's the crossed-off name on the Christmas card address list. It's the old photo. It's the sweet story remembered and retold to children in the car on the way to the grocery store. It's the hymn that was their favorite. It's the image of their smile, brought to mind in the most unlikely of moments. It's the thought of their loved ones, walking through life without them. It's the way your daughter whistles absentmindedly, exactly like her great-grandfather always did.

We said goodbye to my Uncle Gary this past weekend. His death came too soon for many of us, but we know the truth, spoken in prayer by his grandson Isaac at the burial: "Thank you, Lord, for freeing him from suffering and pain." The service was beautiful, and the tributes from friends and family were overwhelming and exactly as they should have been. I was thankful for time to be with my aunt and cousins, to grieve with them and to stand with them through this memorial weekend. And I cried. I cried at the visitation when I saw his body, so different and still and completely unlike him. I cried when I hugged my aunt, when I hugged my cousins, when I watched them being hugged by others. I cried when I saw my husband's reddened eyes and when I heard the catch in my dad's throat. I laughed and cried at the memories shared during the service. And I finally began to understand that this is grieving, too. And I thought I'd finally, over a decade, learned how to do it right.

But then, as the funeral directors moved to open the casket for viewing after the service, I heard the beginning sounds of Les Mis's "Do You Hear the People Sing?" and I couldn't reach my tissues in time for the storm. Because grief still comes unexpectedly, even when you think you are prepared for it. It is still that powerful tide that cannot be held back. It is an onslaught of emotion that comes from the very depths and that cannot be stilled for the moment. It refuses to obey reason and does not care what others think. It is a monster who may lay sleeping for a time but cannot ever be tamed. It is the stark truth that this is not the way it's supposed to be.

For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 

Romans 8:19-23 New Living Translation (NLT)