Kate Kennedy: The Rest Of the Story 

The Rest of the Story is a follow up to the courageous stories told in God is Bigger Than Your Grief of amazing Christians that drew closer to Christ through their grief. 

 Care giving, for Kate, began in childhood and snowballed from her father’s illness and death through her mom’s alzeheimer’s to her death 10 years later.  Kate’s story in Chapter 2”Why Can’t I get on with My Life?”,  portrays her need to be renewed by Christ even when death was expected.

 It has been 15 months since my mom died.  In some ways it seems like yesterday and in a different way it feels like it has been a very long year.  I completely surrendered my grief, fatigue, life really that day after God had told me HE would restore my soul.  True to his word he has done a lot of work on me this year, none of which could have been done without my surrendering my will.  Looking back now, I guess I was very near the breaking point, and turning to Him that day saved me.

 Since then, I have had the great fortune of sharing my story with others, most esp. Karen, which has helped tremendously.  Also, there have been many other resources, insights, scripture, dreams and people come my way that have inspired and supported me in my grief.  We in this country don’t really know how to grieve anymore; we lost the meaning and the benefit of it I think because we take less and less time for these emotions and just hurry on to the next thing in life.  Pretty soon though, we find ourselves physically manifesting all types of illnesses related to stress and stuffed emotion such as heart disease, ulcers, colitis, irritable bowel disease and yes even cancer.  And we still wonder why.  I pray more and more people wake up before the damage is done.

 Recently, I was richly blessed by attending a “grief ritual” performed by an African tribe woman whose name means “keeper of rituals”.  In her explanation of the tribal custom, she explained that grief wasn’t just about the persons’ loss, it was seen and felt by the whole community, and the whole tribe felt that loss.  Until the person sufficiently grieved, the tribe continued to support and turn that person back to the “grief alter” to let go of more, no matter how many times, now matter how long it took.  The grief was shared, therefore lightened by the community for the person grieving.  And when done, the tribe welcomed that person back with great joy because they all felt better.  I was reminded of a neighbor for whom I cooked when his wife died.  He greeted me at the door with such surprise and then emotion as he took in the food.  He just couldn’t believe I had done this simple act of kindness and support.  He said that nobody did that anymore and hugged me long and hard before I left.  How telling of our society.  How sad.

 I took my grief to my God that day and He supported me, grieved with me and gently turned me back to the alter many times to take as long as I needed to grieve so many losses of many types.  I am forever grateful for these lessons He has given me on grief.  I am grateful for such a loving and awesome God.