Was it Enough to Mourn with Her?

One of my good friends had just lost her husband. It was Spring Break 2007. He had died of accidental drug overdose. Having been really sick for a while and on medication, he didn’t know what he was doing when he took too many of his pills. 

Their seven-year-old daughter and mine were good friends and she had spent the night at our house. So, I was the one my friend called when she discovered her husband. I left the girls with another friend and went to the hospital. I was there in the emergency room when they were trying to resuscitate him and defibrillate his heart. I was there in the waiting room with her when she was shaking, crying, struggling with the pain.

During the following weeks, it was a time of great sorrow and fear. Her father came into town and stayed at my house. Her two daughters also stayed with us a few nights. I was often at her house. Anything I could do to relieve some of her suffering, I was willing to do. During those first few weeks, not many people knew what had happened. There were very few of us mourning with her. I had never mourned so closely with someone before. I felt the very real, dark, and heavy weight of the burden. 

When Spring break ended, other moms from the Coyote Hills Elementary School community became aware of what had happened. They joined us in mourning and volunteered to make meals and help with the kids. My role shifted to coordinating these services. I felt the burden lifting from me as it was shared by these other women. It wasn’t just the physical tasks that they shared with us. It was that they spiritually joined with us in carrying the burden. 

Many of them called me. We talked and cried together. I was living through the experience of what Jesus meant when he said “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

The intentions, concern, emotions, and attention of these women had an actual impact upon the way I was feeling. I had been feeling the darkness of death, but they brought in the sunlight of life. I hope that my friend's burden was lightened when we mourned with her. Because I actually felt mine lighten, I have greater faith that hers did too.

“…as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…” ~Mosiah 18:8-9