Comfort in Loss

Have you ever wondered how someone copes with the magnitude of grief? Of loss? Of another person moving on into the energetic world, leaving a bereft hole in the space and endless amount of time one wishes they’d fill? How do you find comfort in loss?

My grandfather comes to mind – not of my loss of him, that is a story for another day, but of his loss of his daughter. Perhaps there is something in my story about his loss that may resonate with, and in some way, help you or someone you know.

Grief is a journey of unknown duration

In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler Ross outlined a process, a graph, of the journey through grief. Much debated over the years, it is generally acknowledged that these five stages are recognisable, and recognised. However, they do not necessarily follow any order, and may occur over any length of time – including a lifetime.

In 2022, Healthcare Central published a discussion around the Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief, given the acronym, DABDA –

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

It is a path I discovered and found useful as I sought to negotiate my own losses, the first of which, as it happens, was my grandfather, five years before Kubler Ross published her insights.  

My grandfather had no map for his grief

My grandfather’s lifetime preceded this publicly available knowledge that may have guided his journey through losses he experienced. (He was born in June 1897 in Midland, Western Australia and lived until 4 Feb 1965, aged 67 years.)

I recall a hymn, apparently his favourite. It is this, in all it’s archaic phrases, heavily doctrinal, and profoundly insightful words, that I believe he found solace when he tragically lost his little girl.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul.

2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
let this blest assurance control,
that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
and hath shed his own blood for my soul.
(Refrain)

3. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
(Refrain)

4. And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
even so, it is well with my soul.
(Refrain)

(The United Methodist Hymnal Number 377)

Why this hymn?

Not having anything more than a light recollection that this was his favourite, I would hazard a good guess as to why.

He was a staunch Methodist, a churchgoer, together with his wife, Nora. They brought their three children – should have been four – up ‘in the church’. This phrase means, they attended church every Sunday, as part of their life: they served the community with their Christian faith as the rock-bed of their beliefs. In short, he saw and lived his life through the lens of his Christian faith.

I am not sure where I read it, or grew to believe that the original words of the hymn were penned and inspired by a father who lost his wife and children on a sea voyage. My recollections are modified in Wikipedia, a summary of which follows –

Horatio Spafford, who penned the lines, was a business man and hymn writer. His financial difficulties took their toll on his life but it was in his role as an evangelist, he planned a trip to England from America. On that trip, he tragically lost all four daughters, and almost lost his wife as they travelled ahead of him on the sea voyage. When travelling to join his wife, he passed the spot where his daughters died, and as a result these words were penned. A deeply tragic story.

“It Is Well With My Soul”, also known as “When Peace, Like A River”, is a hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss. First published in Gospel Hymns No. 2 by Ira Sankey and Bliss (1876), it is possibly the most influential and enduring in the Bliss repertoire and is often taken as a choral model, appearing in hymnals of a wide variety of Christian fellowships.^[a]

When sorrows like sea billows roll

In my imagination, I see the prospect of my grandfather’s version of coping: he may well have found resonance in this hymn. Harold, my maternal grandfather, lost a daughter, the youngest and last of his four children, at barely 18 months old. Even though I cannot imagine the loss, the words, “when sorrows like sea billows roll” resonate with me for my grandfather after the loss of his little girl. She died from an inoperable hole in the heart.

Captured moments

As a parent, I know the fear of the possibility, whether one’s child is a baby, or is a grown adult, I know how the fear of prospect of loss tore at my heart at the times they arose. Losing a child, at any stage in life, is traumatic.

Rewinding time

If I could go back in time, I would ask my grandfather, how did you cope? How did you manage losing a brother-in-law while your wife grieved the loss, while she carried the child who became my mother? How did you manage, barely four years later, losing your fourth baby, only eighteen months old?

I cannot though.

Furthermore, in his generation, emotions were not freely expressed. As loving as he was, in my recollections, he may have been a closed book when it came to talking about matters of the heart. Hence, I imagine an outlet in the words of this hymn, sung from the depths of one’s soul, giving a measure of release.

All is not lost

Spafford’s hymn creates a positivity. I can understand the hymn in the context of the Christian teachings that are integrated into my upbringing. That of faith in God, of belief in Christ’s redemption and how these beliefs can bring comfort. Also, the belief that, in the long run, there is the day of resurrection – when all souls go to be with God and it is then that he (Spafford) will be reunited with his loved ones. I read and grasp how he longs for the day when he will join his loved ones, when the trumpet sounds for him.

Emotional freedom

Today there is greater freedom amongst men to express their emotions openly. The road is long to full acceptance by society in general, and by men themselves, but it is happening.

It would seem that, for Spafford and possibly for my grandfather, grief was something he/they lived with every day. It shows that, for some, there is no ‘finality’ of grief. There may be an acceptance of the loss, and with it, a capacity to move forward. And that is okay.

My way forward

Today, my beliefs are simply that we move from the human form to being purely energetic: that reconnection as pure energy is what happens after death. In having lost my parents and grandparents, I can and do connect with them now. It does not short-circuit resolution of the emotional loss, but it does bring immeasurable comfort.

That is how I find comfort in loss.

NB: Please check out this link for further insights on coping with grief, should you feel you need it, or know of someone you love who may find it helpful.

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