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I was lead by the Holy Spirit to write this book to you. I hope that by reading it, you will see that each of us at some time or other more than likely will walk the journey through grief because each of us must answer the call of death one day. But if we do have God on our side, we have the One who will lead us with his love, compassion and unfathomable mercy and grace. Be encouraged, my friend. God has never left you or your loved one. God is yet here for us. And with his help, you will find that Life Does Go On Even After Losing Someone you Love.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my beloved fiancé Roderick V. Elmore (1956-1997). Roderick I will love you for Always, Now and Forever. I look forward to seeing you in that majestic heavenly place that God is preparing for those who love Him. You taught me what a love from God truly is. Even though I did not get the chance to bear your name, in my heart you are my husband, my gift from God. You loved me unconditionally and I will forever be thankful to God for allowing us to share our live and love with each other.

I also dedicate this book to all those who have experienced the loss of a loved one. May you find and know that our God is an ever-present help in times of trouble. He will never leave us or forsake us. I most definitely dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord for inspiring me to write this book, for giving me the words to say and the strength to say them. I love you Lord with all of my heart and with all of my soul. I thank you Lord for saving me and that one day I too will be with you in that beautiful heavenly city, my eternal home.

To my mother-in-law, Norma Jean Tramble who I call my “Naomi.” Thank you for being an example of courage and might even while you were going through your own journey of grief. Roderick was your only son, and I know the pain runs deeper than even I can imagine. Through it all, you still find time to be there for me. You are indeed a warrior of God almighty and I love you.

And last but certainly by no means least, a very special thanks to Minister Jean Johnson who spent hours, days, weeks and months talking to me, crying with me, listening to me and showing me how to travel my journey through grief—I love you, Jean.

Let me not grieve

As if I have no future hope

But instead let me lean on the

One, who through it all,

Will help me learn just how to cope.

(Shelia E. Lipsey)

when death breaks in

There is now another moment in time that will forever be etched in my mind. It has caused me to begin yet another journey through grief even though I have yet to complete the one I have been traveling for the past several years. That event happens to be the September 11^th terrorist attack on the United States of America. As you know, thousands of lives were lost and countless people have been affected by this devastating act. Many of us lay down our heads the night before looking forward to the next day, or perhaps we lay down with worry and concerns filling our minds; maybe we went to sleep that night full of love and happiness, peace and contentment. I don’t know what the case might have been but I can say that I don’t think any one of us expected what was to come early on the morning of September 11, 2001. The day that so many lives would be changed forever.

For me, when the reality of what had taken place began to settle in my mind, I was harshly reminded once more how temporary this journey called life truly is. I experienced the cut of the knife called grief as it spread across my already broken heart. I felt deep stabbing pains of hurt, sorrow and tears that the families of these loved ones were now gripped by. I cried the tears that the little ones cried as they realized their mommy or daddy would not be coming back home. I felt the sting of death as thousands searched and roamed the streets of New York, hoping and praying that it wasn’t their loved one. I tried to tell myself like once before that there must be a huge mistake or this must be a nightmare that I would be awakening from soon. I felt the ray of hope that so many begin to feed themselves, as they began to believe that they would find their spouses, significant others or children safe and unharmed. I ached and I ached over all that lay ahead for those who were now going to travel the journey that I knew too well.

God! Why I screamed out. What is happening Lord? Why this Father? Again, the same concerns, the same old doubts tried to creep inside my spirit. The same anger and bitterness that consumed me before seemed to quickly begin wrapping itself around my heart squeezing the little life I had left on this journey.

I saw the faces, broken, lost, devastated faces. Faces void of existence because when they lost their loved one, a part of their lives were taken too. What can I say to those who are now added to the list of the left behind?

What I can tell you is that life really does go on even after losing someone you love. I am a living, breathing, walking, talking example of such. My loved one is too because he now resides at his eternal glorious home.

But you like me, probably are now saying what I said when I first began traveling my journey through grief –I said, “Tell it to somebody who cares because you don’t know like I know what I’ve lost and how much I’ve lost. And I don’t want to hear you or anyone else tells me that life goes on because life for me has stopped – dead in its tracks and kicked me off the journey.” But my response to you is that I do understand; I do feel what you feel. But what I have learned is that no matter what we do, or what we say from this point on, the journey has begun and it did not and will not ask for my permission or your permission. Because we will travel it, nonetheless.

This journey for those of us who have been left behind to grieve is now beginning. It is one that will forever be traveled and never forgotten. It makes no difference if we personally knew those who were murdered or if like me, we grieve because we know the pain of losing a loved one. Or maybe it’s because we know that the road ahead will be a tough one to travel.

Grief Expressed

My beloved fiancé, Roderick, died in 1997 at the age of 41. He was the victim of a brutal beating and murder. I remember as if it happened today, right now.

The days preceding his death were beautiful although when I look back, I can hear in Roderick’s voice that he seemed to have had some premonition of his death. I have heard people say such things as this many times after the death of a loved one. But now, I too, can add my name to this list.

Rod knew the pain and anguish I had suffered throughout my life. I felt trapped by what I felt was an unfair hand that was dealt me by life and even by God. I had not only physical problems but fought the bitter past of failed relationships. Rod was always the one to encourage me and tell me to put the past behind me and “Put God First” and before me. “Then and only then,” he would say, “can you move from the past and live in today, Shelia.”

Two days before his brutal murder, he told me these same words; “Shelia,” he said, “I want you to always remember to “Put God First. Always remember that only God can and will see you through.” I didn’t understand at that time the effect his last words would have on my life. I just believe he sensed that something was about to happen. There were even times in the preceding months when Rod told me that he would never leave me, unless he was killed. I did not want to hear him talking life that and would often tell him so. But his reply would be “Well, it could very well happen, Shelia. Tomorrow is promised to no man and there is so much violence in the world today that you just don’t know what another person has on his mind.” Yet he never spoke fearfully. He had such deep trust and faith in God and so he believed that death was just the door that would lead him to his “real home.” He wasn’t fatalistic or anything, he was faithful and trusting and just believed God. Time and time again his words ring and ring throughout my ears, throughout my mind and within my spirit.

After Roderick’s death, I was totally devastated and even today, and now, even years later; I find that I still experience the devastating effects of losing him. I am experiencing, like many of you, the ultimate pain--the pain of grief because I lost an essential part of my life when I lost Roderick.

In his book, “A Grief Observed,” C. S. Lewis described the pain and grief of losing his wife by saying, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning, I keep on swallowing. What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth? They say an unhappy man wants distractions—something to take him out of himself. . . . It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy; finally, dirty, and disgusting.”

I know for myself what C. S. Lewis felt like when his wife died. I have experienced the same anguish that he experienced and that you are experiencing now. Like Lewis, I too felt that it was not worth fixing myself up, making myself look presentable, or taking the time to clean the house or cook a meal or bathe, or anything that involved “living.” Why would I continue to do these things when my beloved was gone?

When Roderick was taken away from me, the weight of pain nearly drove me to suicide. I became a living zombie. I felt my heart had literally been broken, crushed. I became consumed with anger and doubt. I felt God had deserted not only me but my dear Roderick as well. The God I so proudly proclaimed to others as sovereign became a God who I believed had betrayed Roderick and me.

On the day that he was murdered, he had just gotten word that he had been blessed with a great new job that would open the door even wider for him to accomplish the things in life he desired.

We were actively involved in our church. Roderick worked with the Outreach Ministry and I worked in our Children’s Church Ministry. He was a much-loved man and filled with a heart of genuine concern and deep care for others.

After not ever having a relationship with their biological father, my sons had come to love him as their own father. My family thought he was the best thing that could ever happen to me and they were right! I loved him with all of my heart. I was so grateful to God for designing our lives to intertwine with each other.

Rod and I had not been dating a very long time when he asked me to marry him. But I knew that this man was from God. I felt it in my spirit and after much prayer one on one with God and after praying alongside Roderick, we knew we were about to make the step God wanted us to take. So when Roderick asked me to become his wife, I accepted and the two of us began making plans for our wedding day. I was excited at the fact that not only was I going to have a wonderful Christian mother-in-law but a Christian husband too, who loved my sons and me dearly and whom we loved also. Our wedding day was planned to take place on my birthday. Yet two months before that day, on May 28, 1997, Roderick was beaten and shot by thugs trying to take what rightfully belonged to him.

I was torn into. I was destroyed. I began to live my own day-to-day death. I became consumed with bitterness, hate, and unforgiveness. I wanted desperately to understand what happened. Why had God allowed such a tragedy as this to happen? How could he have taken Roderick away from family, from friends, from so many people who loved him? How could he take him away from me-the very one who needed him, who lived and breathed him? How could he take him away after bringing us together?

I wanted vengeance for the people who stole his life away and destroyed our dreams and aspirations. I felt numb, like a zombie, emotionless, and empty. So many different emotions all at one time consumed my very being. Where is God? I cried out. And why did he hate me so much. Why did he not let Roderick live instead of dying? Why, why, why my heart and soul cried out.

In the onset of your grief experience you might very well go through these same feelings. Feelings of anger, doubt, loneliness, unforgiveness and pain might consume you. God may seem to be far away while pain rampages through your entire body, mind and soul.

It matters not how your loved one died. It only matters that the person you loved, whether, wife, husband, mother or father, sibling or child is no longer here on earth with you and beside you. He or she is unreachable, vanished, never to be with you again. And it hurts like no other hurt you have ever experienced or will ever experience in your life.

You think because you are a Christian that your pain will be any less? You think that your thoughts of anger and doubt will not be as great? I am here to tell you that it is not so. I’m also here to tell you that everything you feel during your journey through grief and pain, God understands. You might even become bitter, like I did, and like me you might even say, “Sure, God understands. But you don’t know like I know.”

That’s where you’re wrong. I do know. After all, I have walked in your shoes, treaded the same ground as you. We have lost someone we love. Therefore, we do share a commonality. That commonality is—Grief, loss, hurt and the ultimate pain.

“Where were you

when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions?

Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone

while the morning stars sang together

and all the angels^[a] shouted for joy?