A letter from the valley of grief

I realized lately that I never shared in full how Dad has so tenderly been walking with me through the Valley of Grief.

I remember when the prospect of removing my ovaries came up, it felt so abstract, so clear-cut and unemotional. I was taken by surprise when my surgery date got closer and the real impact of what I was choosing to allow, what I was losing, what I was walking into began to truly sink in.

You know me, I joke about everything. Dark humor is my coping mechanism. I can’t help but make light of even the darkest parts of my life. But this was one of the first times that I couldn’t joke about it.

Did removing my ovaries make me less of a woman?
Would intimacy in marriage be forever changed?
Would I have had a daughter if we decided to have one more?
What would she have been like?
Would Archie & Phin be protective big brothers?
Would she have been a teenager I struggled with, or would I have enjoyed the truly priceless gift of close friendship with my daughter as she grew into a woman? I know having a mother/daughter relationship like Lorelei and Rory is unrealistic (and, can we say, unhealthy?), but one could hope right?

These questions didn’t come all at once. It’s always a process with me and God.
A conversation.
A back and forth.

But the gravity of what I was choosing darkened on me. I know the right word to use here is “dawned,” but dawn holds such hope that it just feels wrong to use it here.
Because hope is the last thing I was feeling.

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I remember watching Anne of Green Gables earlier in the year, when I was deliberating over between this big decision, whether or not to choose this prophylactic surgery. The way my doctors spoke, ovarian cancer just seemed like it was a death sentence, more often than not. So here I was, watching a trilogy that I’ve grown up loving— which has only ever produced uplifting thoughts and feelings in me. (I mean, what Anne of Green Gables fan hasn’t daydreamed of their very own Gilbert?)

But you know the third movie? The one during the war where Anne almost gets with another guy because she thinks Gil is dead? (I mean, is she even worthy of Gil at this point? Get yourself together, Anne!)

Okay, I’m getting to the point, I promise. Anne finds herself helping a mom with an infant. Their camp is being attacked by the enemy, explosions everywhere, surrounded by panic, pain, and a mixture of dirt and blood. A bomb hits, and the mom goes down. Knowing she won't make it, she grips Anne fiercely and forces her wailing baby into Anne’s arms, begging Anne to take him, care for him, keep him safe.

My eyes were wet with tears—which has never happened before at this part, by the way. I knew that I had to do whatever it took, whatever was in my power to do, to make sure that I didn’t leave my boys at such a tender age too.

The thought of death has never scared me. But of leaving Archie and Phin before I get to see who they become? Of them calling for “Mama,” searching the house for my presence, my embrace, and never feeling it again?

Would they eventually forget what it was even like?

Friend, don’t misunderstand me. I trust God with their welfare and know He would care for them even better than I ever could. But this Mama’s heart bleeds at the thought of leaving them too soon.

I remember preparing for surgery, getting ready to go back and go under. I’ve had several surgeries in the last few years, but none have felt so grave as this one. Ironically, the procedure itself was so simple and quick. I told those outside my inner circle that I was having a “minor procedure.”

Because it was.
But at the same time, it really wasn’t.

As they wheeled me back to the sterile, white surgery room, tears seeped quietly out of the corners of my eyes. I believed—and still believe—that if God wanted me to choose the high risk of cancer over the surgery, He would have stopped me. So I trusted Him then as I do now.

But that didn’t make it any less painful.

My surgery was on a Friday, and that weekend was one of my lowest. Of course you can’t feel your ovaries, but I somehow felt that a significant part of me—a part that made me a woman—was gone. And, while I didn’t want everyone to know, to see, somehow it made it harder that it was invisible to the world.

I was grieving the loss of a part of me, of the ability to have children, of the possible daughter I would never have, and no one could physically see any of these losses.

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Fast-forward about six months (and through a double mastectomy) to a week of training with our Debriefing Department. I loved the idea of learning how to help others process hardship, but I had no idea that I was going to be walking further through the Valley of Grief that week too.

In the weeks before the training, a friend sharing a beautifully tender conversation she had with her Dad had touched a vulnerable place in me. The loss of my own Dad over twenty years ago was resurfacing, and it seemed I was grieving a loss again, but, at simultaneously, for the first time.

And so with these two heavy losses in the recesses of my heart, I entered the week of training. Throughout the week, God addressed and spoke into these losses. A concept so small and seemingly insignificant seemed to shift something within me—the idea of “nonfinite losses.”

A nonfinite loss is the loss of something you never had or never will have.
Whether it be singleness. Infertility. Orphanhood.
More children. A daughter.
Seeing Jackson with a little girl wrapped around his finger.
A Daddy to see me through my teenage years.
A Daddy to walk me down the aisle.
A Grandad for Archie & Phin.
The redemption of the father/daughter relationship I never had through Jackson and our own daughter.

And what’s hard about nonfinite losses is that they’re so hard to grieve and process because they're hidden, unseen by the world. You don’t have a funeral to commemorate and grieve a nonfinite loss. Something about a funeral soothes and aids the soul in the grieving process. And even though it’s hard to talk when you’re grieving, even in your inner circle of friends, it still helps when people know you’re in mourning.

You don’t get any of that with a nonfinite loss.

But somehow, putting the finger on these two soul wounds and letting God touch them, teach me about nonfinite losses, helped me with that process. Anna, my spiritual mentor and one of the trainers that week, advised me to “make an appointment with my grief.”

At first, I didn’t know how to do this. My first attempt consisted of me sitting on my couch in the early morning and telling myself that it was time to be sad—like a scheduled crying session.
As you can imagine, that didn’t work.

I went back to Anna, and she explained further. So, in the early morning hours while the rest of the house still slept, I tried again. I wrote two letters. One to the daughter I would never have—Imogene, “Gene,” for short. And one to my Dad.

Doing so was soul wrenching, telling them how I felt, what I missed about them. Tears smeared the ink.
But I felt Jesus with me, weeping with me.

I remember the words a friend shared with me shortly after my surgery:

“I was praying for you on my drive yesterday, and I felt like Jesus spoke some sweet words of encouragement. I first heard the phrase, ‘Joy comes in the mourning,’ and got the sense that this season of grief will not last forever. It is a season, and you will once again experience joy.

“I then felt the Lord speak Psalms 23:4: ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.’

“I saw a picture of you at the opening of a dark valley. I felt like its name was the ‘Valley of Grief.’ Jesus was beside you. You looked at him and said, ‘I don’t want to go.’

“He then replied, ‘That’s alright, I will be with you.’

“‘What if I get lost?’

“He then took your hand and said, ‘You won’t. I know the way. I will lead you.’

“You responded, ‘How long will it take?’

“He gently smiled and said, ‘As long as it needs to, but it won’t take forever.’

“You are brave, and Jesus is good. May you have the courage to take Jesus’ hand and allow Him to walk you through grief. As you trust Him, may you discover a new depth of joy.”

Jesus has been holding my hand the entire time and hasn’t stopped since.

I was invited to share my story of hope at church not long after this week of training and grieving. I wished you were there in the audience, one of the faces I could focus on as I stood before a group of women, heart open, vulnerable.

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I remember the first time I went to a community gathering after my surgery. A colleague had just given birth not too long ago. I couldn’t bring myself to go to her and congratulate her on her sweet new baby. My own loss was still too raw. I would never get to snuggle my newborn baby again.

Seeing newborn babies and pregnant friends has gotten easier over the last year. It doesn’t affect me more often than it does. But there’s really no predicting when the wounds in me will resurface.

Grief is like that. Unpredictable. Seemingly endless.

While I was in Cyprus for leadership training, several other women there had newborn babies, daughters specifically. Maybe it was being out of my comfort zone, in a season of transition but also openness to growth and the Spirit’s input.

For whatever reason, my grief was resurfacing. I took it to Jesus.

In a time of intimate worship, with the song, The Blessing, playing in the background, these lyrics again and again:

“May His favor be upon you.
And a thousand generations
And your family and your children
And their children, and their children.
May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with you
In the morning, in the evening
In your coming, and your going
In your weeping, and rejoicing
He is for you, He is for you.”

And our kind Father spoke through His Spirit into my grief:

You sacrificed your potential future children for the sake of the children you do have. Your sacrifice will be honored in Archie’s & Phin’s own lives.

He lovingly, beautifully whispered a promise—I promise I know I don’t deserve. His favor will be on my children and their children and their children. He will honor the sacrifice I made to stay in their lives by working in their lives for His glory.

Thank you, Dad.

I wanted to share this with you because I knew you would see how beautiful it is too.
How kind our Dad is.
My sister.
My brother.
My friend.

With love,

Rachel

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