JL Gerhardt - A Grief Received: What to Do When Loss Leaves You Empty-Handed

My most sincere wish is that the Living with Hope series will offer comfort, wisdomand hopeto individuals facing lifes most common and intimate challenges. Books in the series tackle complex problems such as addiction, parenting, unemployment, pregnancy loss, serious illness, trauma, and grief and encourage individuals, their families, and those who care for them. The series is bound together by a common message for those who are dealing with significant issues: you are not alone. There is hope.

This series offers first-person perspectives and insights from authors who know personally what it is like to face these struggles. As companions and guides, series contributors share personal experiences, offer valuable research from trusted experts, and suggest questions to help readers process their own responses and explore possible next steps. With empathy and honesty, these accessible volumes reassure individuals they are not alone in their pain,
fear, or confusion.

The series is also a valuable resource for pastoral and spiritual care providers in faith-based settings. Parish pastors, lay ministers, chaplains, counselors, and other staff and volunteers can draw on these volumes to offer skilled and compassionate guidance
to individuals in need of hope.

Each title in this series is offered with prayer for the readers journeyone of discovery, further challenges, and transformation. You are not alone. There is hope.

Beth Ann Gaede, Series Editor

Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First Century
(Lynne M. Baab)

Dignity and Grace: Wisdom for Caregivers and Those Living with Dementia
(Janet L. Ramsey)

Jobs Lost, Faith Found: A Spiritual Resource for the Unemployed
(Mary C. Lindberg)

They Dont Come with Instructions: Cries, Wisdom, and Hope for Parenting Children with Developmental Challenges
(Hollie M. Holt-Woehl)

True Connection: Using the NAME IT Model to Heal Relationships
(George Faller and Heather P. Wright)

Waiting for Good News: Living with Chronic and Serious Illness
(Sally L. Wilke)

Carrying Them with Us: Living through Pregnancy or Infant Loss
(David M. Engelstad and Catherine A. Malotky)

A Grief Received: What to Do When Loss Leaves You Empty-Handed
(JL Gerhardt)

When Trauma Wounds: Pathways to Healing and Hope
(Karen A. McClintock)

Addiction and Recovery: A Spiritual Pilgrimage
(Martha Postlethwaite)

I was twenty-one when my brother died. The night before his early morning car crash, I hosted friends in my brand-new red-brick home. I served lasagna, played games, took pictures. Only one of those pictures survives, and when I look at it (I hardly ever look at it) I dont much recognize the woman I see staring back. In the 46 glossy, black-and-white print, my husband and I sit cross-legged in front of our very first Christmas tree. Theres a fire in the fireplace to my right, stockings hung on the mantel. Though I am just twenty-one, Im married and have a mortgage. In ten hours Ill be twenty-one, married, mortgaged, and mourning my twenty-year-old brother and best friend.

I dont like to look at this picture, to look at this young woman I hardly recognize, this woman who thinks shes safe. Her eyes sparkle, her smile wide and innocent. I want to protect her from what comes next, to at least warn her. But no siren passes from here to there. Tomorrow she will wake to an ambush.

In the picture Im newly brunette, having dyed my hair this ill-fitting color on a whim. Sometimes I think this girl must be my dark-haired cousin, like me but not me. I look at the picture, the last one taken of me before my brother died, and its like stepping through a portal into another dimensionBefore.

On the morning after the moment in this picture my grandfather will call and tell me my brother didnt make it home, that his cars not in the driveway though it should be, that his bodys not in his bed. My grandfather will ask me to pray. I will.

And then hell call back, no more than two minutes after Ive said amen. Jennifer, Bobbys dead.

Because this is a book about grief, and because its in your hands, I expect my story isnt foreign. You likely have your own early morning phone call story. Or maybe a late night by the hospital bed story. Perhaps you found out like my mother did, when a policeman arrived at your door, a policeman you couldnt bear to let in. Maybe a doctor put her hands in her wide, white pockets, her eyes on the floor as she walked toward you, and you knew before she said a word.

If youve had a moment like this, youll never forget it. Youll remember the shirt you were wearing, the color of the paint in the hospital waiting room, the smell of Lysol wafting in from the hall, the exact tone of the ringing phone. For the rest of your life, itll be the moment when everything changed, a permanent hash mark of time and identity. We, the grieving, catalogue our lives by our loss, everything Before or After, everything pre- or post-phone call, diagnosis, knock.