(a reminder – I write in part to process the emotions and thoughts I have about various things or situations in my life and I share them with you in hopes that I can shine maybe a little light in a dark world, and that you might somehow be blessed by my words.)
In his book, The Seven Habits of Effective People, Steve Covey uses the analogy of picking up sticks for understanding the consequences of making decisions. When we make a decision, it is like picking up a stick. We may very well select the one we want and we pick it up out of a pile of sticks. But as we make our decision, we have to accept the consequences of those decisions, or as Covey puts it we have to accept the mud that is on the other end of the stick that we pick up.
We use this analogy of picking up sticks often at work as we consider the consequences of our decisions or the decisions made by others.
All that is to say, that rarely is a decision so easy that there isn’t some consequences that we don’t necessary like, and each decision comes with the mud that is on the other end.
I’m not sure I accept the popular culture idea that love is just something that happens to us – its far more than that. Most people talk about how they “fell in love” with someone or something. Certainly there is an emotional side of love, but love is also an intentional decision. M. Scott Peck in the book, The Road Less Traveled, describes love as conscious decision. He says, “Love is an act of will –namely, both an intention and an action.”
We can certainly make a choice to love something or someone. But there are instances when the decision to love doesn’t really feel like a choice, but rather something that happens to us. For most parents, they don’t weigh their options about whether they love their children, they simply do – because they are their children. And in the choosing to love, we rarely think about the consequences of love. Picking up the stick to love someone is pretty easy. In fact, it is even hard to say that there are negative consequences of love.
Grief on the other hand, is rarely if ever, something that someone chooses to endure. There are all kinds of nuances, and types of grief, but in short, it is defined as deep emotional suffering because of a loss. The definition gives the example of the loss through death, but there are all types of loss. We mourn the loss a house from a tornado, a loss of a job, the loss of friends moving away. We also mourn the loss of our failed expectations, and the beautiful dreams we have. (There is a song about Mourning the Death of a Dream by Michael Card).
While as I said, we may not choose grief, I think it is certainly the mud on the end of the stick of love that we pick up. We would not experience grief if we did not choose love. If I choose not to love something, then I feel no (or at least very little) grief, if I were to lose it.
I also don’t believe the story told by our popular culture that becoming an empty nester is a joyful time to be celebrated. Popular culture tells us becoming an empty nester is a time of freedom and a time to celebrate by popping open the bottle of champagne.
We certainly celebrate our children’s growth and watching them grow into adults. I have watched our two oldest grow and take on new challenges and adventures. My heart swells with pride in them and love for them. But that joy and love also can be a source of grief. That choice (stick) of love is covered with grief (mud) on the other end.
For me, it was a time of grief – or still is a time of grief. In our house, the time of becoming an empty nesters, was not just about our kids growing up to be adults and being on their own.
It wasn’t so much that our youngest moved out to be on her own as it felt like she was taken from us. We watched as she changed from the joyful little girl to young person filled with anxiety and aggression – to the point we could not care for her anymore. There was grief over the realization that we needed help in raising her. She wasn’t going to be on her own, but would need someone to take care of her. The grief was also about the death of the expectations and dreams we had for her. It wasn’t that she was leaving the nest so much as she was taken from us.
But I remind myself, the grief from all of that is the mud on the end of the stick of love. And I would make the choice to lover her and our other children over and over again despite the mud of grief on the end.
A Long Intentional Walk 