1.5 Years | Grateful for Grief

Oct 2, 20248 min read

Dear Muir Rock Family,

It's been a while again since I've checked in. As you all probably know, every day I have a lot on my mind I want to share here or with my close friends, but since I'm trying to get more sleep, I run out of time at night. I'm also trying to get better at being OK with not telling everyone everything. I'll make an exception and hopefully get through this post in record time since it's already late.

1.5 Years | 18 Months

October 2 will mark 18 months since Teri passed away. I’ve been thinking about October 2 for weeks. One question that came to mind recently was, will there come a day when I stop pausing on the 2nd of every month to reflect? Probably. And that's okay. But not today.

It's time for the Holiday season to start....so why not start today's post with one of my favorite videos:

"Rerun" from last year...Teri doing her thing regarding my entry to the Woodbridge coloring contest. I wish I recorded more of these fun interactions I had with her.

Today, I feel like I’m in a good place. The emotional rollercoaster has started to level out a bit—there are still ups and downs, but I’m seeing more ups lately, some I'll share about here. Life has been quite peaceful, maybe because of all the extra yoga I am doing (good Idea to stretch a lot so I don't get injured). I can't explain it. In fact, there's a bit of guilt since I just came back from my Grief Share class. I keep sharing with friends that one of my first world problems I love having is figuring out when to take rest days from Ironman training, which I'm also really enjoying these days. It's really crunch time from now until race day...

Why did I title this post, Grateful for Grief? It started with Sucheta texted me a link to a podcast episode sent to me from Anderson's Cooper's podcast: Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief.

The podcast came at the perfect time and was the highlight of the week. Hearing from Sucheta and my middle school/high school friends always makes me smile. Here's some of us at our wedding. I'm so thankful to have kept in touch with many of you since middle school:

Last Tuesday, I was on the dip of the roller coaster—I was tired from a long day at work and my grief class was canceled, so I went to some workout classes instead since I didn't feel like going to the pool (where I should spend my evenings). On the way home, I listened to the podcast. It's given me tons to think about, I probably should have dedicated a post to just this topic now that I think about It. One part, in particular, really resonated with me:

About two months after my mom died in June 2019, I was back at work and I sat down with Stephen Colbert for an interview on CNN. I read that Stephen's father and two of his teenage brothers were killed in a plane crash when Stephen was 10. It's the same age I was when my dad died. I was feeling lonely and sad after my mom's death, and I decided to see if Stephen might be willing to talk with me about some of his experiences with grief. You told an interviewer that you have learned, in your words, Love the thing that I most wish had not happened. You went on to say, What punishments of God are not gifts? Do you really believe that? Yes. It's a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There's no escape in that. But if you are grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. At a young age, I suffered something so that by the time I was in serious relationships in my life with friends or with my wife or with my children, is that I some understanding that everybody is suffering. And however, imperfectly acknowledge their suffering and connect with them and to love them in a deep way that makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered so that you can know that about other people. I want to be the most human I can be. And that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn't happen because they gave me a gift. - Anderson Cooper & Stephen Colbert (emphasis added)

My first reaction to hearing this was, really?? Grateful for all of it? What in the world....

But then I thought, I really really do have a lot to be grateful for. After living on this earth for over 40 years, I've never felt so human until now. It's hard to explain this in words. At the surface, I am OK with a slower paced life and feeling lots of emotions every day. I'm OK with shedding some tears when I feel down. Life doesn't really feel like a big blur. I'm OK not having plans in the evenings and actually embrace the evenings when I just get to be by myself and walk Mayo around the lake.

That wasn't the best explanation and I won't use Chat GPT to help since that sort of defeats the point of feeling so human...

Maybe a picture will help? The stuff on my fridge I've collected over the years does a great job summarizing what's important to me these days (I rearranged it a bit):

There's really a lot to be thankful for:

Learning to move at a snail's pace (Okay only when I'm in the pool, but you get the idea)
Coton de Tulear magnet (Mayo)
Seoul, Korea magnet (Teri's trip)
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength
Jerusalem trip magnet
Other cute magnets (I think Rita gave them to Teri?)
Emotion Wheel and talking about feelings
My Sunday life group (missing the Johnson's and the Scott's) but we all stay in touch
My family (thankful that so many are close by)

During the 2nd of each month, I usually write about how much I miss Teri, and that’s still true. She remains the love of my life, and I wish she were here with me since it's still way more fun to do things with Teri than do things alone. But I’m beginning to embrace the idea of her being in heaven, free from the suffering of this world. I feel so grateful for the years we shared, from 2017 to 2023. It was shorter than I imagined, but I can see that there was a purpose for all of it. I know God had a reason for bringing Teri into my life, and I trust Him as I continue to move forward.

One memory I return to often is from her trip to Korea with Emilyn and her friends. I'll share the story again since I recently shared this at life group. I thought Teri would want to talk every night while she was away, but she was so caught up in enjoying herself that I barely heard from her. I remember giving her a hard time about it, but I was glad she was having so much fun.

Missing Teri and Mustard...

I really imagine that’s what it would be like to see her in heaven. She's doing great and I should be thankful if she's forgotten about me because she's busy....

She’d be happy to see me, but I think she’d be so full of joy and excitement up there that I might feel a little forgotten again—like she was too busy having fun to be as excited as I was to see her. And maybe that’s okay.

The 3 S's

No I'm not talking about the names of 3 women that start with an S...

I've shared with some of you that I want to close out the rest of 2024 by focusing on:

Sleeping (going to bed ASAP)
Singleness
Swimming (tired of being super slow)

The 3 S's. Well there's actually 5 S's come to think about it if I were to include Solitude (cold plunges, yoga, etc..) and Simplicity (cleaning out the garage).

It's time to sleep but I'll conclude today's post on embracing singleness as we come into this holiday season.

TimeLeft - Dinner with 5 Strangers...

Thanks to targeted instagram ads, I spontaneously signed up for TimeLeft, a new service that arranges dinners on Wednesday nights with 5 strangers. This is not a dating app. What's on their website for those that may be curious:

This is what Timeleft is all about. We create opportunities for the magic of chance encounters. The conversations you would have missed, the people you wouldn’t have met. Safe moments to interact with people around you so that you can be more involved with the world you live in. Free-fall into social possibilities without digital screens. Open up to the people around you without expectations. Start a conversation, spark a connection. Go out for a dinner with strangers.

Being a very strong introvert, this is sort of the LAST thing I want to do. This also means I want to work on being more extroverted. During MBA school I had so much anxiety going to networking events. This sort of felt the same way after I signed up on Tuesday night to attend dinner the next day. Thankfully It all worked out, we had a great time! The food was great (cheeseburger + mac and cheese). Everyone was so welcoming and we stayed at the restaurant for over two hours. We then got ice cream afterwards. Since I love documenting everything, I figured why not ask the group if we can all take a group photo:

I enjoyed our time so much that I signed up to go again this week (every Wednesday night). Check it out if you want a unique way to meet new people.

The crazy part is afterwards when you give everyone a thumbs up or thumbs down via the app. I got all thumbs up! Quite the opposite of my online dating life...lol. Maybe I'm also embracing the fact that I'm pretty good at making new friends.

What's nice about Timeleft is the icebreaker questions. I'm terrible at random chit chat, but when we all get to take turns answering a question, I feel a little better. One question we all answered was, "what was the best part of your week so far?." I shared about Sucheta sharing the Grateful for Grief podcast and how I truly am grateful for this season. I don't want it to end.

Elevation Worship Concert

I'm glad people share what they're up to on Social media.

On Saturday night, I saw that Julian and Lauren (my production team church bosses) went to the Elevation Worship concert. It looked like a lot of fun and I could benefit from a time to worship in this way since I've been serving these past few weeks doing worship lyrics, all the way in the back of the auditorium. Anyways, I decided on Sunday afternoon to just buy myself a ticket and go by myself. I had an amazing time:

Thanks again Julian and Lauren for the great idea!

I rarely go to concerts. I've never gone to the movies by myself. Going to this concert by myself just seemed like the best thing I could do on a Sunday night. I'll probably do more of these in the future, please put any other ideas in the comments section.

The most emotional part of the evening was after the sermon. We all sang Graves into Gardens:

So much fun to worship Jesus on a Sunday night with 13,000 people.

Oh, there's nothing better than You There's nothing better than You Lord, there's nothing Nothing is better than You You turn mourning to dancing You give beauty for ashes You turn shame into glory You're the only one who can - Graves Into Gardens Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship

After 18 months of losing Teri, the love of my life, to cancer, all I really want to share with everyone still reading is that there really isn't anything better than Jesus. He really does turn mourning into dancing. He's the ONLY one who can. And He is why I can be grateful for grief. I can be grateful for ALL of my life.

So much for a short post and trying to get more sleep. Thank you for reading and watching, I'm SO grateful for all of you. If you are going through something difficult and need someone to talk to, please let me know. If I don't hear from you, I hope you all have a great rest of the week!

Blessings,

Erwin