My son texted me this morning. “I don’t know if I can make it the whole day without crying.”
Let me back up.
Our beloved pet of fourteen years, BB, passed away yesterday. Fourteen years of walks, throwing the ball, belly rubs on the living room floor. When we got her, they described her as the “lover of the litter.” At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. It didn’t take long. It meant she wanted love above anything else. Belly rubs, head scratches, just being near you — that was her whole world.
We had a friend stay with us a few years ago. He said he would bet that BB would pick food over love. He was wrong. You could put a steak on one side of the room and a lap on the other, and BB was walking to the lap every single time. She didn’t want to eat. She wanted to be held.
Fourteen years. That’s longer than both my kids have been alive. She was there before them. She was the first baby.
BB had been telling us for a while that her time with us on earth was ending. We all chose to ignore it. The challenges jumping up on the couch. The slower movements. The walks that used to be a mile turning into half a block. We noticed. We just didn’t want to say it out loud.
The last week of not eating was when we had to face it. Those sad eyes — she was ready. She was staying for us. And loving her meant letting her go.
So when my son texted me that he didn’t know if he could make it through the day, I talked to him. “When you get sad, think about BB up in heaven playing ball with Granddad JR. That’s what I’m doing today. When you feel the emotion wave coming on, think about something happy. When I pick you up today after school, we will feel the pain together. Right now, you have to stay there.”
I don’t know if it helped him. And honestly? I’m not much different than my thirteen-year-old today. Today hurts. BB was with me after every chemo treatment. Every single one. She never left the bed. She didn’t need to understand what was happening — she just knew I needed her there, and she stayed. That was BB. That was always BB.
It hurts. And it will continue to hurt.
But at some point, you have to get up off the floor and get back to living. Not because the sadness is gone. Because the day isn’t over and the people who are still here need you in it.
There’s a story in 2 Samuel that I’ve been thinking about all day.
King David’s infant son was gravely ill. And David did what any of us would do — he fell apart. He fasted. He wept. He lay on the ground all night. His servants were afraid to even talk to him because his grief was so raw. He stayed on that floor and he begged God.
Then the child died.
And David did something no one expected. He got up. He washed his face. He changed his clothes. He went to the house of the Lord and worshiped. And then he sat down and ate.
His servants were stunned. They said, “What are you doing? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept. Now the child is dead and you get up and eat?”
And David gave them one of the most important lines in all of scripture:
“Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” — 2 Samuel 12:23
Read that again. I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
David wasn’t pretending it didn’t hurt. He wasn’t stuffing his feelings. He grieved — fully, completely, on the floor. But when it was over, he stood up. Because staying on the floor wasn’t going to bring his son back. And God still had work for David to do with the time he had left.
That’s the lesson my thirteen-year-old is learning this week, whether he knows it or not. It’s the same lesson David modeled three thousand years ago: grief is real, grief is holy, and there is a moment where you have to get up off the floor.
Not because you’re over it. You may never be “over it.” But because the people who are still here need you present. Because God isn’t done with you yet. Because the best way to honor what you lost is to keep living the life they were part of.
I think about BB up there with JR, and it makes me smile. My dad, who never met a dog he didn’t love, finally getting to throw the ball for the dog who never wanted to stop chasing it. That picture doesn’t make me sad. It makes me glad — because I know where they both are, and I know I’ll see them again.
God isn’t ready for me to go there yet. And neither am I. But I am comforted knowing that when it is my time, she’ll be there. They’ll all be there.
David knew that too. He didn’t say “my son is gone.” He said “I will go to him.” There’s a difference. One is an ending. The other is a rain delay.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4
It doesn’t say pick one. It says there’s a time for both. The wisdom is knowing which time you’re in.
When the wave hits — and it will hit — let it come. Cry in the car. Cry in the shower. Cry when you walk past the leash by the back door. That’s the weeping time and it’s sacred.
But when the wave passes, wash your face. Change your clothes. Go to work. Hug your kids. Throw yourself into the life that’s still happening around you. That’s the dancing time, and it’s sacred too.
My son is thirteen. He’s learning this for maybe the first time. But I’ve seen what happens when someone never gets up.
When my step-grandfather died, my grandmother hurt. Not the kind of hurt that fades after the funeral. The kind that moves in. We spent a year trying to get her to live again. She didn’t want to. She fought it — not the grief, but the joy. She stopped herself from feeling anything good, like happiness was a betrayal of what she’d lost. She was bitter. She would see friends with their husbands and it hurt. Why do they still have theirs? That kind of hurt. The kind that turns grief into something darker.
Then she wrote me a letter. I still remember the opening line: “I hate myself. I hate what I have become.”
I got that letter and drove five hours to see her. She was shocked. “I didn’t mean for you to come.” Not going wasn’t an option.
I don’t know what did it. Maybe it was writing it out — putting the pain on paper so it wasn’t just rattling around inside her anymore. Maybe it was knowing that her family would do a small thing like drive five hours to try to get her back. But she did start living again.
Ironically, my grandmother would have understood this. She used to tell a story about an aunt she loved — an aunt who never married and had no kids. My grandmother grew up in California but moved to Kansas after marrying my grandfather. Getting back to California didn’t happen often. On one trip, she went to visit that aunt in a nursing home. The staff told her that visit completely changed her aunt. Before, she was bitter. She thought everyone had forgotten her. After that visit, the grief was gone. She knew her niece was still there, and though they were a thousand miles apart, the love was still there.
My grandmother told that story for years. And then she became the aunt. Bitter. Forgotten. Convinced that no one was coming. Until someone did.
That’s the other side of this sermon. David got up on his own. My grandmother needed someone to come get her. Both are real. If you can stand up, stand up. And if someone you love is still on the floor, go get them. Drive the five hours. Not going is not an option.
A lot of adults still haven’t figured this out. They either stay on the floor forever or they never let themselves get on the floor in the first place. David did both. He hit the floor hard, and then he got up. That’s the model.
Here’s what I want you to take from this today. Whatever you’ve lost — a pet, a parent, a marriage, a friendship, a version of yourself you’ll never get back — the grief is not the problem. Grief means you loved something. The problem is when you set up camp on the floor and never stand back up.
God gave you people who are still here. He gave you work that still matters. He gave you a today that still needs you in it.
Feel the wave. Let it wash over you. And then get up off the floor.
Because you will go to them. But they will not return to you. And in the meantime, you’ve got a life to live.
The week after we lost BB was a roller coaster. I wrote about navigating it in Walking Through.
My Prayer
Lord, today is heavy. You know the weight of what we carry when we lose something we love — because You carried it too. When Lazarus died, Jesus stood at that tomb and wept (John 11:35). You know what it is to grieve. Thank You for giving us permission to fall apart. But thank You, too, for showing us how to stand back up. Help us feel the wave without drowning in it. Help us honor what we’ve lost by living fully in what we still have. And when the sadness creeps back in — because it will — remind us that this is not the end of the story. That the ones we love are not gone. They are just there first. And one day, we will go to them. Until then, help us get up off the floor. Amen.
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