I ran across the following in an email and thought it spoke beautifully to the process of grieving. And by the way, there is no “right” way or “right” amount of time. Grief is the price of love, and the more you loved and were loved, then the more the grief.

“Elisabeth Elliot was barely 29 years old with a 10-month-old daughter when her husband, Jim, was murdered by the Auca Indians in the rainforest of eastern Ecuador in 1956.

Years later, when writing about grief, she said, ‘Sooner or later, many of us experience the greatest desolation of all: he or she is gone. The one who made life what it was for us — who was, in fact, our life. And we were not ready. Not really prepared at all. We felt, when the fact stared us in the face, ‘No. Not yet.’ For however bravely we may have looked at the possibilities (if we had any warning at all), however calmly we may have talked about them with the one who was about to die, we are caught short. If we had another week, perhaps, to brace ourselves … a few more days to say what we wanted to say, to do or undo some things, wouldn’t it have been better, easier? But silent, swift, and implacable the Scythe has swept by, and he is gone, and we are left.’

How do we explain the pain of grief? C. S. Lewis, in describing the emptiness he felt after his wife died, said, ‘Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.’ If we live long enough, we will all experience grief. And, like Elisabeth Elliot, we will all feel ‘we were not ready. Not really prepared at all. We felt, when the fact stared us in the face, ‘No. Not yet.’ ‘

As Christians, we are assured that we do not ‘grieve as others do who have no hope’ (I Thessalonians 4:13); because we are assured of a resurrection. We learn that in our grief we are like Jesus who was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:3). We are also promised relief from the dull, persistent pain of grief; because Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). At some point in our future, we will find comfort from grief because Jesus guarantees it. 

King David once faced the unbearable grief of the loss of a child. As a result, he turned to God in prayer; and he serves as a wounded model for all of us.”

C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful little book called A Grief Observed after he lost his wife Joy. It’s one of the most raw, transparent and honest books I’ve ever read in my life. I can’t recommend it enough.