For a year, Josh’s freezer was always full. Every time he would use a casserole provided by faithful family members or friends, someone would replace it with a dish tastier than the last.

Not being a cook, Josh never realized how many varieties of recipes there were for lasagna and chili. He also discovered some of the delicious recipes were meatless! Now, however, as he used each frozen package for dinner, there was no replacement of his supply. As he counted the remaining containers, he found in one more month his whole supply would be depleted.

For a year, Josh also had a steady stream of visitors who offered him comfort and companionship. Available baby sitters were abundant, although he did not as yet have much interest in going out. Now, however, visitors did not call on him and baby sitters were scarce. He struggled to find someone to watch his toddler so he could attend the parent’s conference at the nursery school where his son was enrolled.

The drop-off of food and visitors was so precipitous that Josh wondered if everyone he knew met together and decided he should not be grieving anymore. “Where’d everyone go?” he lamented when he came to my office on the anniversary of his wife’s death.

Though grief over the loss of a loved one will be mollified by time, the duration of mourning is highly variable for each person. In the Bible, there are many instances of intense mourning over the death of family members, so I looked there for guidance to counsel Josh on how long grieving should last and how long we should help. Early in the Old Testament when Jacob, one of the Hebrew patriarchs, was told his son Joseph had been killed by a wild animal, “Jacob tore his clothes and put on sackcloth.” (Genesis 37:34). Much later upon the death of his son Absalom, King David in one of the most poignant verses of Scripture exclaimed: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you — O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18: 33). This intense expression by David of grief for his son occurred despite the fact that Absalom had led a rebellion against his father.

In the book of Job, three friends, coming to comfort Job who had lost all his sons and daughters in a violent storm, did not speak for seven days after they arrived at Job’s home “because they saw how great his suffering was” (Job 2:13). In the New Testament, when Jesus’ close friend Lazarus died and Jesus witnessed the intense expression of grief by Lazarus’ two sisters, Jesus’ response is reflected in the shortest verse of the Bible: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35).

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Though there are tears on many pages of the Bible reflecting palpable grief, there is no simple declaration of how long people in the Bible suffered their losses. In a few instances, we are told suffering was for “many days,” but only in the example of Jacob is there any definition of the duration of suffering over a death. When his sons and daughters came to comfort him, Jacob exclaimed, “In mourning will I go down to the grave for my son” (Genesis 37:35).

Though the Bible rarely characterizes the duration of mourning, the Bible states a principle for us to approach those who grieve and those left alone after the death of a spouse: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted from the world” (James 1: 27). Josh told me in the office, “My suffering hasn’t ended just because it’s been a year. I’m getting there, but I still need help.”

We should not judge and withdraw from those who mourn when we think it is time for them to move on. The Bible avoids tidy precepts on how long we should help. With the principle it states, we are to determine the specifics of how to help and for how long. If there are needs, we should be there. “Many days” may be months or years. We must look after those in distress, those who are mourning and those in need.

Dr. Delvyn C. Case Jr. is a hematologist/oncologist, writer, playwright and director, and consultant to the Department of Spiritual Care at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

 


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