Gardening and Grief

By: Katy Martin, LPC

I was robbed.

When someone takes something from you, it is a horrible feeling, no? It's a feeling of violation. Someone came too close to you and took something valuable, without taking your feelings or needs into consideration. Or without considering the time and energy you spent to take care of whatever was taken.

For me, it was tomatoes. I walked out to water my garden on Tuesday morning and my tomatoes were GONE. My garden has produced two pea pods and one jalapeno pepper, so my hopes and dreams were hinging on these green, but growing, six whole tomatoes. And now they are gone. A furry creature has taken the fruit of my labor.

So where does grief come in?

In my disappointment about the missing tomatoes, I began to think about a loss of greater impact: loss felt when a loved one dies. (Really, I did.) The loss of a loved one absolutely does not compare in magnitude to my six tomatoes but I think it compares in that we often feel robbed when we lose someone close to us. And this feeling of being robbed is something we don't acknowledge or talk about. We acknowledge the sadness, anger, and so many other feelings of loss. But feeling robbed of this person's presence isn't often something we can anticipate.

We are robbed of our future with this person. We are robbed of that person's role in our life: mother, grandfather, sibling, etc. We are robbed of someone knowing us. We are robbed of what should have been with that person. It's remembered with birthdays, holidays, and life changes. Who was there is now gone, and who they were in our lives has changed to memories. Our own roles change, as well.

And it's easy to feel violated. Angry. Frustrated. And this is often directed towards the person, the circumstances, or towards God. It can result in complicated grief. Grief becomes complicated grief when symptoms of sadness, depression, and hopelessness extend for over a six month period or become more intense or even debilitating over time.

Can you relate? God is not a stranger to these feelings of loss. As He gave His Son on the cross, He experienced the death of a loved one, His child. God experiences loss every day when we choose to not turn towards Him. We can turn to Him. We can share our feelings and memories with those around us. We can turn our sadness into honoring the one we lost. We can pursue counseling to sort out the hurt left behind.

You may feel left behind, robbed, but you are not alone.

My garden may have been robbed, and may appear barren, but a perfect, green, ripe cucumber emerged a few days later. In the midst of sadness and grief, life is still happening even though it may not be what we wanted or what we thought it would look like. Don't give up hope. We can find comfort in Lamentations 3:22-24: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him."