THE SCULPTURE OF GRIEF

THE SCULPTURE OF GRIEF

I was scrolling through some grief posts on Instagram when I first saw the sculpture, Mélancolie by artist, Albert György. I was instantly moved by it and sat there and studied it for a while. It's a statue of a solitary man sitting on a bench with his head bowed and shoulders slumped. Just in the way he is sitting, you know this man is in pain, feeling defeated. He has no face that I can see (the sculpture is Geneva) but that's not what draws me to the art. The thing that spoke to me was the fact that this sad, defeated man has no core. From the shoulders to the waist, its just a giant, gapping hole through which you can see the beautiful landscape behind him. I know this man. This man is me.
Just looking at the image of the sculpture, I knew the artist had to have dealt with loss in his life and after learning about him, discovered he had lost his first wife. As I read comment after comment on places that had posted his sculpture, I realized I wasn't the only one it spoke to. There were several people moved by this piece of art because they felt the heartache of losing a child. Some had lost a family member or friends and still others saw it as representing the depression they felt in their lives. We all deal with grief, lose or depression so differently and yet, there are things we can all identify as feeling the same. There's a look about it, a feeling you get. The artist captured it so well in this piece. The giant hole in the middle of your body that no one can see, but you carry with you all the time.
After Greg died, I really felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It hurt and I was sure it was beating differently. My general practitioner gave me an EKG right there in her office, but everything was fine. I continued to complain about it and so she sent me to a specialist, where I wore a heart monitor for a few weeks, did an ultrasound of my heart and stress test. You guessed it - everything was fine. That was almost three years ago. I was in my doctor's office again late last year and asked for another EKG because I swear, my heart hurts (it came out normal again). There really is a thing called having a broken heart. But I loved how the sculptor took out the whole middle of the person. Because when you are grieving, it's not just the heart that is affected. We use the term, "gutted" when feeling deep emotion and that is exactly what it feels like. Like someone stuck a knife into our stomach and twisted.
I think the biggest thing I identify with the sculpture is there is a feeling of emptiness when you look at it. Being in grief or depression can often leave us feeling this way. My family just celebrated my parent's sixtieth wedding anniversary. The night before, my three siblings and their families all came over to celebrate my mom who recently had a birthday. We were all out in my backyard, the little kids running a playing, the older cousins laughing and enjoying themselves and my siblings trading growing up stories (which always seem to end with how I had it the best growing up as the princess. I'm not sure how they haven't discovered that I deserved that title. They saved the best for last!) There was a moment when I was sitting there, enjoying the atmosphere around me, when inevitably I feel the loss of my person. I think how much Greg would love this moment, how he would try and defend me from my mean siblings, how he would enjoy watching the kids play. How proud he would be of our kids and how we had moments like this and the contentment I felt in them when my world was right.
This is where I differ from all the other Instagram stories about grief. Yes, grief is sad, depressing and lonely. Yes, there are real times I feel empty with such a deep heartbreaking ache that I think I could be physically sick. But I have hope. The kind of hope only found in knowing Jesus. I love Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you many abound in hope." ABOUND in hope. Not just get by in hope. Because of Christ's death and resurrection, we can have the hope of salvation and the Holy Spirit indwelling us who gives us peace that passes all understanding. So when I am tempted to feel like that giant hole in the middle of my body is ready to swallow me, I pray and remember that with Christ, I am never alone and the hope that He has a future for me gives me peace in the midst of my beautifully broken life.