The Grace of Grief

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Mt 5:4)In my younger days this beatitude always left me with a feeling of receiving a consolation prize. Like, Dont worry, it will be okay. And I remember my mother always saying, These experiences are good, it makes you strong. I always responded silently: How?

Auxiliary Bishop Jan Hendriks of Haarlem-Amsterdam and churchgoers light 298 candles, representing the victims of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (Photo: Paul Vreeker, United Photos/Reuters/CNS)

Mourning is the expression of sorrow for someones death. In his book Blessings for Leaders, Dan R Ebener reiterates that we can grow in strength from the experience of mourning. Mourning exercises the muscles of the heart, just as physical activity exercises the muscles of the body. When we mourn we develop resilience. We remember what is most important in life. We empathise with the pain of others. We develop a more durable capacity to mourn again.

Although the death of someone close to us is very personal, our mourning is not just personal. Times of mourning bring people together. Our friends, colleagues, and loved ones suffer with us collective mourning.

Mourning enhances our relationships, because when we mourn together as a family or community, we can grow in empathy and love for each other. These relationships strengthen our endurance during times of mourning.

In 2007 our family experienced the tragic loss of my father, my sister-in-law, my nephew and niece; all four instantly killed in a car crash. My brother was the only survivor. From his hospital bed he asked me: What am I going to do?

I remember the hopeless feeling I had. My reply was: For now, you are going to get better first. Thats all I could say. How do you comfort or console or reassure someone who has lost his father, wife, son and daughter, all in one go?

Up until the funeral our family was carried by friends, colleagues, the parish community, neighbours, and even strangers. The experience of this tragic loss of life was too big for us alone.

The recent tragedy of the shot-down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 brought disbelief, confusion and utter shock to many of us let alone to the family and friends of the passengers. The whole world collectively mourned with the families of the 295 passengers who died.

In a strange way we feel connected to people whom we have never seen in our lives before. We can identify with their loss. We feel for them. Why? Because through our own experiences of loss, we can identify with what they are going through. We might not have lost someone through a plane crash, but we have lost someone through death, just as they have.

This sense of empathy is an important characteristic of a leader. Leaders must be able to identify where people have been and what they are going through, before they can talk about where we want to lead them.

And so we acquire a deeper understanding of painful situations when we have experienced pain ourselves. We become more approachable. That is the blessing that can come through times of mourning.

Now, later in my life, my mothers words these experiences are good, it makes you strong has much more meaning for me, because I have learnt how to be with a person who has lost a loved one.

Before, I was too scared even to go to the house of a family where someone had died. I cant explain why; I think it was just the thought of a corpse being present. Now I have an understanding of the experience of death and what the family is going through, so it is much less daunting for me now to enter such a house.

What I have seen, over the years, through the strength of others, is how peoples empathy for the bereaved family turns into action through the support, material, financial and spiritual that is given to them.

Indeed, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.