Foreword
On 6 July 2018, my wife of 18 years died suddenly from a heart complication. Since her death, our four children and I have been trying to make sense of life without her. The journey has been arduous and at times overwhelming. Very often, the sadness has felt inescapable. But through it all, I’ve found reading the stories of others and listening in on their experience to be a tremendous benefit. Hearing how others give expression to their experience of loss has often resonated with my own experience, leaving me feeling less alone, less isolated, more understood.
My hope in writing is threefold. The first is personal. As I give expression to my own experience I hope to use this as a means of processing and accommodating Susie’s absence into my life and our lives. The second is for the sake of others. While posting content of this nature on a public website can expose you emotionally, and thus open up significant vulnerabilities, if others can somehow benefit from the way I express things, just as I have from others, then it will be worth the risk. Third, is spiritual. In writing this, I hope to demonstrate how my Christian faith has helped me in this darkest of times, and how the Bible provides a robust view of suffering.
Grief is a beast. And I hate it. But it is born out of love. Had I not loved, I would not grieve. But had I not loved, neither would I have lived. Not really. I loved my wife and the life we had together. I love my children and the life we have together. And undeniably, the love we’ve received from friends and family has helped us survive this most treacheorus of ordeals. Strangely, grief only acts to assert the fundamental and extraordinary worth of life and love.
And while the beast of grief is born out of love, I firmly believe it will also be destroyed by love. And ultimately that’s what we see in Jesus Christ and his death on the cross:
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever shall believe in him shall not perish, but have eternal life‘
John 3:16
I hope this site, meagre as it is, can be an encouragement in some way.
Scott Millar