I shall go to him: accepting the death of someone you love

“But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” 2 Samuel 12:23 (ESV)

It happens in the strangest moments.

You hear a joke on the radio and reach for your phone to text your sister. You see the first robin of spring and think, Dad will want to know. You set two mugs on the counter before you remember.

For half a second, your mind forgets. Then it remembers, and the ground drops out from under you all over again.

If that happens to you, you are not losing touch with reality. You are doing something every grieving heart has to do, slowly and painfully. You are learning that they are really gone.

I wonder if acceptance is less a door we walk through once and more a lesson we keep learning.

People talk about acceptance as if it is the finish line of grief. Get there and you are done. So when you still catch yourself reaching for the phone a year later, you wonder what is wrong with you.

Accepting the death of a loved one is one of the hardest things a person ever does. Part of you knows the truth. You were at the funeral. You signed the papers. And another part of you keeps waiting for the car in the driveway, the voice on the line, the footsteps in the hall.

That tension is exhausting. It can even make you feel guilty, as if accepting the loss would mean you did not love them enough. Holding out can feel like a way of keeping them close.

There is a story in the Old Testament about a grieving father who held that same tension. It has helped a great many people find their footing.

Accepting the death of a loved one: what your heart is trying to learn

Before we get to that story, it helps to understand why acceptance takes so long. Accepting the death of a loved one is not the same as being okay with it.

What the research shows. Mary-Frances O’Connor, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who studies grief and the brain, explains that when someone dies, “the brain has to change its understanding of the world.” Part of you has learned the facts. But the part of you that bonded with them still expects them to be there. In her words, “Even though your memory says one thing, your attachment neurobiology says a different thing.” (University of Arizona)

That is why the moments of forgetting happen. They are not a sign that something is wrong with you. They are your mind and your heart slowly catching up to each other.

The grief counselor William Worden described the first task of mourning as learning “to accept the reality of the loss.” (Rhodes University Counselling Centre) Notice that he called it a task, not a feeling. It is something you work at over time, often in small moments, rather than something you either have or do not have.

The king who got up off the floor

The story is in 2 Samuel 12. King David’s newborn son was gravely ill. The story around this child is a painful one, tangled up with David’s own sin and its consequences. But in these verses, David is simply a father pleading for his baby.

For seven days he refused to eat. He lay on the ground all night. When the elders of his household tried to lift him up, he would not get up. He begged God for the child’s life.

On the seventh day, the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him. If he was this undone while the boy was alive, what would he do now?

David saw them whispering and understood. “Is the child dead?” he asked. They told him yes.

Then David did something that surprised everyone. He got up from the ground. He washed and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came home and asked for something to eat.

His servants could not make sense of it, so David explained. “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?'” (2 Samuel 12:22, ESV). Then he spoke the words at the top of this post: “But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23, ESV).

Look closely at what David did and did not say. He did not say he was over it. He did not say it did not hurt. Scripture never suggests David stopped loving that child.

What he stopped doing was fighting a reality he could not change. “Can I bring him back again?” The honest answer was no, and David let himself say it.

But he did not stop there. “I shall go to him.” David faced the hardest truth with a hope bigger than the hard truth. The separation was real, but it was not the end of the story.

And notice the order. Before he ate, before he returned to ordinary life, David worshiped. He brought his broken heart to God first. For David, acceptance was not giving up. It was handing over.

Gone, and still loved

Many grieving people are afraid that accepting the death means letting go of the person. It does not.

Grief counselors often talk about continuing bonds, the healthy ways we stay connected to someone who has died. Telling their stories at the dinner table. Keeping a recipe card in their handwriting. Carrying a value they taught you into the next generation. Acceptance lets go of the expectation that they will walk back through the door. It does not let go of the love.

That is why so many people feel guilty the first time they laugh again or sleep through the night. It can feel like a betrayal. But David’s story shows that getting up off the floor is not the same as forgetting. He rose, washed his face, and ate, and Scripture still remembers him as a father who loved his son.

You can say two true things at once. They are gone. And I still love them.

Keep reading: Called by name: who am I after losing someone I love?

A hope that can hold the hard truth

Centuries after David, the apostle Paul wrote to a young church in Thessalonica that was burying its own. He did not tell them to stop crying.

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (ESV)

Paul did not say, do not grieve. He said, grieve with hope. In the very next sentence he grounds that hope in Jesus, who died and rose again. The hope is not that death is unreal. It is that death does not get the last word.

That hope is not something you have to manufacture. It rests entirely on what Jesus has already done. You do not have to feel strong enough to accept the loss. You can bring Him the part of you that is still on the floor, still pleading, still reaching for the phone. He knows that place. He stood at His friend’s tomb and wept.

If faith is not something you are sure about right now, you are still welcome to sit with this story. And if you have ever wondered what it would mean to know the One who walked out of His own grave, I would love to share more with you here.

Keep reading: Call me Mara: where is God in my grief?

Something to sit with this week

This week, when you catch yourself reaching for the phone or setting out the extra plate, try pausing instead of pushing the moment away. Put your hand over your heart and gently say both halves out loud: “They are gone. And I still love them.” Accepting the death of a loved one happens a little at a time.

Then, if you would like, pray something like this:

Lord, I cannot bring them back. Help me stop fighting what I cannot change, without letting go of the love. Hold what I cannot hold. Amen.

You will probably still reach for the phone sometimes. That is all right. Each time it happens, your heart is learning a little more of what David learned on the seventh day. They will not return to you. But the story is not over.

Blessings,

Pastor Howard