Grief work.
I will never forget sitting down with our counselor for our first session just a few weeks after Ilona died and he said, “If you are willing to go through the work of grief…”
To be honest, I don’t really remember what he said after that. It had something to do with achieving some sort of healing and being able to find joy again.
But what I do remember is, while he was saying those words, I was thinking, “Do I have a choice?”
I guess some choose not to do it. Some choose to try to forget and move on.
Shortly after Ilona died an acquaintance shared with us that she had a brother die when they were all in their teen/early 20s years. She explained that the way her mother dealt with it was to put away all the pictures of her brother and to never speak of him again.
That hurt my heart to hear.
I thought of Ilona and how much I love her. I needed to grieve her. I needed to enter into the work of grief and not just try to “move on”.
My life felt so dark, I really didn’t know where to go or what to do.
I just knew I was grieving and it was not going to end anytime soon…if ever. I could see no future. I didn’t really know what I was working towards. Even in those early days I knew there would never be a resolution – but I knew there was a lifetime of work to do.
We started The Ilona Foundation for many reasons. One of those reasons is because many people have come alongside us to lead us through the darkest-darkness I have ever experienced.
I know what it is to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I know the depths of the pit and to have eyes so dim that I cannot see. I know what it is like to wonder if I could make it to the next day.
There were many days when I didn’t think I would…
Yet, it was the grace of God poured out on us through people that helped me make it to the next day, and the next, and the next.
It was the prayers of the saints that sustained our whole family.
And so through The Ilona Foundation, we hope to somehow walk alongside others who are grieving and mourning a loss – whether it’s been only days, weeks, months, or even years.
Much of this blog will be about grief work.
Much will be about grief education.
My desire is that it will be helpful to prepare others for grief and loss, to come alongside someone who is grieving, to work through your own grief, and together to make it to the next day knowing that it is by God’s grace that we made it…and then make it to the next.
