Grief is stealthy. It doesn’t usually attack head on. It prefers to sneak up on me when my guard is down.
It very effectively did that yesterday, one day short of a year from my sister’s diagnosis of stage 2 ovarian cancer. But the realization of that isn’t what caught me off guard.
My brother wrote that he’d been in contact with a friend of my sister. The friend wrote that the last time he spoke with Helen, a couple of weeks before she died, she had asked for 2 of her own recipes which she had misplaced. He attached the recipes in the email.
The email didn’t hit bother me even though I immediately remembered overhearing that phone call.
That memory didn’t bother me.
I opened the attachment and there it was; the sucker punch, grieve’s modus operandi. The recipes were written in my sister’s handwriting. I wasn’t expecting her actual handwriting, which like a thumbprint, is unique to all of us.
My feelings started with just a gasp, but rose quickly from the void recently created by her death.
A gasp, a sigh, a groan, then deep silent sobs, and finally audible sobs, which summoned my husband to my side with a ready embrace.
Grief is never finished with its ambush of me until it reminds me it will compound my loss again someday when I lose another loved one. Grief reminds me how fragile my loved-ones’ lives are. How fast and fleeting is mine.
But grief, where is your victory? By reminding me of the fleetingness of life you remind me to treasure each moment, to store up memories in my heart, which you can not destroy.
Grief retreated. I know it will sabotage me again. But it can not win the day. I have a Savior Who has overcome death.
“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:55 ASV
I Once Was Lost And Found 
I know this grief. I know that feeling of having the wind knocked out of you, the gasping for air. I have no words that can help, no words to tell you it gets better. Susan just knocked me down, frozen in a moment of time that I can never get out of my head. Just know I pray for you. We serve a mighty God.
“Be still, and know that I am God”
All my Love ❤️
Karen
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Oh my goodness. After all these years? But why am I really surprised. I was blindsided by grief for a dozen years after my mother died. Thank you for your prayers! We do serve a mighty God, in that verse is such comfort. I had never heard the song that is
linked at the end. It’s so moving. Love you 💕💕
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