Pure Grief vs. Foul

(And a peek at my family from years ago!)

[The Swallow family in all our vintage ‘70’s glory!]

We will take a break from our dear Milton this week, readers. I usually write my posts on the weekend and revise on Monday to post for Tuesday.

This weekend, however, we are preparing for my mother’s memorial service on Monday, which will have come and gone by the time you read this. I want to write and post this beforehand to give myself space for grieving and gathering with beloved family and friends.¹

I’ve posted snippets recently here and there about how a new grief re-opens old ones.

This is continuing to be so.

Two years ago, on November 14, 2022, I received an email out of the blue that shook my world. It ended up shaking my faith in Christian leaders, Christian institutions, and the Christian way of life that I knew.²

Almost exactly two years later (I only just realized this), on November 12, 2024, my mother died. Her death was not out of the blue, although it was much too soon (even at age 88). We had some warning. We did all we could to prepare her and ourselves. We supported one another. We said what needed to be said and did what needed to be done in the best ways we knew how. She died in her home, surrounded by her family during those last weeks and days. Her beautiful—though unspeakably hard—death was the blessing of a way of life that honored Jesus in every way. There were and are no regrets. Her death grew my love for my family, my friends, and my community.

My grief at losing her is so strong.

Yet it is pure grief.

It is un-dirtied by confusion, disorientation, betrayal, and humiliation. As I experience this pure grief, I better see how the grief I had before—that I have been processing for two years (and that was the catalyst for establishing this place I call The Priory) and that has now come back with a vengeance—is so different. It is sullied by sin and hurt and harm.

Death, along with a host of other sadnesses in this fallen world, is inevitable. There is already too much grief in this world.

And I have less tolerance now for the unnecessary kind.

Thanks for giving me space to experience this pure grief, the loss of this pure love and life of my precious, sweet mother.

I’m thankful for all the ways this little community supports me. I hope my work here supports you in some way, too.

I’ll be back next week to continue our discussion of Areopagitica. Then we will start on some of Milton’s poetry, including Paradise Lost. I hope you will grab yourself a good edition of that work to begin reading now!

1. I am posting this “raw”—without recording and without being proofed by the dear Eileen Lass who does this task so faithfully and well. I expect Eileen at the service, so want to give her space, too.

2. It did not shake my faith in Jesus. By his grace, that has grown only stronger and, dare I say, purer.