Clichés, groans and sighs

Grief is a wild, dark journey.  (Image from Pixabay)

I lost my mother last month.

No, she wasn’t actually ‘lost’.

She died.

That’s how we describe it, because that’s how we feel. We have indeed lost someone – lost them finally and utterly and completely. There is no going back from someone dying. There is a gap in the universe now which nobody else can fill except that unique person. But they are gone, and there is no way in heaven or on earth that we can get them back. There is no arguing with the blank, silent, finality of death.

I’ve lost five precious people to death over the last nine years. One of the things that surprised me was how quickly I resorted to using clichés. When my housemate died of cancer, for some weeks I couldn’t bring myself to say that she had actually died. Instead I used the common euphemism, ‘she passed away.'  ‘Died’ was too stark a word for the rawness of my emotions. Of course that was what had happened – I wasn’t in denial about the reality of her death. But I still didn’t like to say it, to name it.

I'm a writer. I don't want to write clichés. Yet in the face of death, I found myself using them.  Maybe we use verbal clichés about death because we are trying to describe the indescribable, and no mere words can do justice to our soul-numbness, our own unique journey of grief.    

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.’ 

That's how the NIV-UK renders Romans 8: 26. The New Revised Standard Version's translation is ‘sighs too deep for words.’  The King James Bible tops them both with the sublime phrase 'groanings which cannot be uttered.'

Grief is a wild, dark journey. We grieve how we can. No-one else can do this for us, even if we are surrounded (as I hope we are) by loving friends and a good support network. If we want to use clichés as a way of expressing our grief, that’s fine. There are no rules to grieving. We can use whatever words we want. I suppose clichés are a bit like rituals – they make us feel safe, they help us to process the unimaginable and unendurable. 

Of course, as writers we want to avoid clichés. Being a writer doesn't provide a perfect healing for grief, but expressing our feelings through prose or poetry can help. It’s cathartic. Writing can help us shape our thoughts and feelings into a pattern, a melody, a tapestry.  We can also help other people through what we write. The best Christian books I’ve read on grief and loss are those that not only undergird my ultimate faith in God’s love and sovereignty, but are also searingly honest about emotions, doubt, and the various processes of grief.  I don’t want to read sweet, flowery ‘Christianese’ on death.  I want something REAL – something gritty and honest and which doesn’t shy away from the darkest aspects of loss.  

Writing about the darkness can provide a way for the light to shine.

N.B.  As it happens, this post is scheduled to be published on Ash Wednesday, the same day as my mother's funeral.  I therefore won't be responding to comments on the day itself.

Philippa Linton is a Personal Assistant in the Education and Learning Department of the United Reformed Church. She has been a licensed Reader in the Diocese of Rochester since October 2001. She likes art, books, cinema, wild swimming and prosecco. Her short story 'Magnificat' appears in the ACW Christmas Anthology 'Merry Christmas Everyone'.