After the devastation in Moore, OK, yesterday, I’ve had it with death and dying. There’s just been so many major events in the last few months – really if you go all the way back to Sandy Hook Elementary. Then we had Boston. And West, TX. And the tornado in Granbury, TX, just last week. There’s been a lot of loss. Also, as always, there have been stories of strength. Of faith. Of resilience. But even with my natural optimism, my secure faith and unwavering conviction that God is sovereign, my family and friends . . . even I can find it all a bit much.

I’m glum tonight and for all of the above and for none of the above. Just sort of glum. Which makes me sad and this reminds me of grief. And since I work out grief when I run, it brings me to this post.

This August, my father will have been gone 4 years and I find that stunning. Stunning that he’s been gone that long. Stunning that at times it hurts just as badly as when it first happened. Stunning that not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. And most of the time, it’s when I run.

Right after he died, my running provided space for me to weep. I ran and I wept. For almost an entire year. Quite literally leaking tears on the road along with my sweat. It was wonderful and it was terrible, but whatever it was I had space for it where nobody could judge or invade or try to fix. Just time to get it out. I started seeing cardinals regularly then and although I can’t tell you why they show up for me, they do. With shocking regularity. Almost every run. And they somehow let me know that my dad is with me in my heart, in my mind, in my running. Even during my first marathon, during a particularly hard time, a guy passed me wearing a Cardinals shirt. It made me laugh because of the creativity of it. We serve a big God with a great sense of irony.

My dad was the one who taught me to love running. He told me who Jim Fixx was. He laced up every morning at 5am and did 3 – 4 miles. And I would brag to my friends, “my dad’s a runner” sometimes even before I would brag that he was a pilot. He was a great man. Not a perfect man (there’s only been one of those) but a great man and every day I’m sad that he’s no longer here in the flesh. But he is here. In the faces and personalities of my sons, in the discipline he handed down to me in genetics and in principal, and in the excellence he brought to everything he did. And when I run, I always feel like he’s with me.

What’s my point? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe just that there’s a lot to grieve lately. Does it mean I’ve lost my faith when it makes me feel sad and a bit unhinged? Not in any way. If anything, my losses have increased my faith. As the saying goes, heaven is a much more real place when you know someone who lives there.

I guess my point is this: grief will have it’s way. It will work itself out. You can face it head on, maybe even carve out daily time pounding the pavement to work it out. You can find others to talk to and work it out with. Or you can stuff it. And let it paralyze you and shut you off to the very emotions that make you human.

So if you’ve had loss and you’re in pain, find a way to let it out. And understand that although it will hurt less over time, it will never stop hurting all together. And that’s OK, too. Because there are an awful lot of us grieving with you. And the more you talk about it, the more you’ll find that out.

I’m about half way through George Sheehan’s Running and Being. It’s pretty much rocking my world as a writer and as a runner, and I came across this quote from a letter he wrote to a student who was considering embarking on a running routine but was concerned about the time it would take.

“That hour on the roads is for ideas and principals, for mediatation and contemplation.  . . and what of the soul? This hour allows, as does no place else, the freedom of seeing yourself as you are. Where better to examine your life, or your conscience, or to say your prayers? In that hour, every vice, every weakness, every shortcoming is seen and accepted. There is no confession you would withold from yourself. And yet you can accept yourself as you are, because at that moment you see doors open and glimpse possibilities for yourself you never imagined. And you know you are indeed finite and imperfect, but you are also, like David, fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Amen, Dr. Sheehan. May all of us find joy in the midst of our grief.

Happy running,

Jen