Don’t Ask Me How I Am: A Reflection on Loss, Grief, and Making Meaning When There is None

Content Warning: cancer, grief, loss

I get the call as I’m merging onto the highway. “BOB,” the screen reads. My best friend’s dad is calling me— not texting, calling.

Shit.

I feel anxiety rise in my chest as I signal to take the next exit because I know it’s bad news.

Bob’s words break through in short bursts: “I’m so sorry, Tori. Kristian slipped into a coma last night. Our boy, Tori, our boy.” 

The sounds wash over me in slow motion. I cruise down the off-ramp. 

I am driving, but also floating. I am here, but now somewhere else altogether.

“I’m so sorry. I’m coming,” I respond.

I circle home numb, as if I’m dreaming. I throw a couple of things in an overnight bag, not knowing how long I’ll be gone.

Back on the highway, I head south and order my phone to play music. Shuffle decides to play Train’s “Drops of Jupiter,” and I’m an immediate and desperate mess. I cry the remaining five hours to Austin, knowing that my thirty-five-year-old best friend is dying of cancer.

Sometimes, I wish my singular experience of grief was just that, singular. The loss of a best friend at such a young age is surely an “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy” type of experience. 

But this collision of pain and loss does not belong to a select few of us. Rather, these types of hardships are universal hallmarks of human life. 

We live, we lose and we struggle to make sense of things. Life, in all its unpredictable brutality, persists.

We find ourselves asking, “Why, God?” or “What’s the point of this?” We wonder when the rubber meets the road, if  having faith in anything is even enough. 

Faith itself, however, may not be our problem. 

My religious upbringing gets credit for giving me a general framework and moral compass for life. But as I got older and my world gained complexity, I noticed gaps between what I was taught about faith and the reality at my doorstep.

In the weeks following Kristian’s death, these gaps were cavernous.

Not only did my loss have me questioning the most basic of my own beliefs, but I also noticed just how unprepared everyone else was for such an event. Even some of those I saw as leaders in my church and at my seminary seemed to struggle for words that might comfort me. 

“How are you?” they asked. But when I answered honestly, I realized most of them didn’t really want to know. 

Once my tears began, they became restless, shifting their weight. They communicated their condolences, obviously, but their eyes surveyed the room.

They seemed to be wondering, “Oh shoot, how quickly can I get out of this conversation? I hope she’s okay, but I have a meeting at 2.”

Great loss seemed to make people… uncomfortable.

I was consoled. I was handed tissues, both individually and by the box. I was told “he’s in a better place” and that “God moves in mysterious ways,” which had a particularly exquisite way of pissing me off.

What I really needed was for someone to sit in the mud with me— to simply be present with me in my personal tragedy. I wanted someone to say, “This sucks and it’s awful. But I’m here with you.”

When we encounter great suffering, we don’t need faith that things happen for a reason. We need a theology up to the task.

Platitudes like “God is in control” simply don’t hold water when your best friend is dead. Though these phrases may be delivered with good intentions, they are band-aids applied to gaping wounds, grasping attempts to make meaning when it feels like there is none.

By viewing suffering as a hidden blessing from God, we misconstrue God as a chess player, deftly moving the pieces of our lives for some “greater good.” This makes God a villain and dilutes the great Christian story, which is meant to encompass all of life, even the most painful parts.

In the creation story, when God makes the world and calls it “good,” there is no promise that bad things will not happen. In fact, things go south within mere pages of the Old Testament.

What the creation story does is establish the vision God has for the world— one of peace, cooperation and communal wholeness. As the story marches into the New Testament, we see that ultimately it is a redemptive one, where we are tasked to reach for a reality “on earth as it is in heaven.” 

The creation of the world was not a one-time event. Rather, it is an invitation into an unfolding, one which we are very much a part of. 

God is continually involved in this process, as are we, who co-create along with God. We have agency and choice and we decide whether or not to take part in God’s vision for the world.

On the night of Kristian’s memorial service, a group of about thirty of us went dancing because he always loved to cut a rug. We were a chaotic mass of hugs and tears. Other bar-goers gave us sideways glances, but we danced on nonetheless. 

At one point, “Like a Prayer” by Madonna comes on, and I look around with watery eyes at this tragic collection of friends. I know this is the beginning of a lifetime of hard things for many of us. 

We will lose parents. More friends will die. But as I watch them cry and sway, holding each other through what feels insurmountable, I wonder, “Is this heaven on earth?”

It is not that suffering does not occur. Rather, it’s a question of whether we are willing to be present to it so it might be transformed. 

God wants us to be a part of life, not shy away from it. The story of Jesus and the cross wasn’t about avoiding pain. God instead chose to stand right in the midst of human tragedy, showing us the possibility of radical redemption forever.

On the one-month anniversary of Kristian’s death, I visit his parents and we share his stories. Even though we spend more than half the time crying, we know he would have loved seeing us on the porch swing together, watching the wildflowers bloom.

Another month passes and some friends take me to the beach. I look across the waves and am reminded of how much Kristian loved seeing new places and I miss him achingly.

I cry publicly into the ocean and my friends let me. They don’t ask how I am because they know. Their simple presence in that moment offers me a chance to feel more connected to my loss and to them. 

At the three-month mark, another best friend loses her grandmother. She knows that I know grief and so she comes to my house. 

We sit together as she painfully and delicately pieces together her Gram’s eulogy. I attend the funeral, feeling proud as she speaks publicly and bravely about her life, which is forever changed.

The moments are painfully beautiful. 

Slowly, I begin to make little bits of sense out of a loss that feels too great to fathom.

More and more, I find God in the shattered pieces of my life. Those brave enough to sit with me help me put them back together again and in turn, I offer those pieces to others.

God watches, somehow, as we make a little bit of heaven in a messed-up world.

Grievers don’t need you to explain their loss or even to fix it. But they do need you to sit with them, sharing moments, holding hands. Let their tears fall without handing them a tissue to wipe them all away.

Don’t ask if they’re okay. They’re not. And it’s okay for them to not be okay.

If you’re looking for something you can do, you can remind them this part won’t last forever. But it’s okay if it feels like it will. 

Bring them coffee, or maybe tea. Tell them you’re coming over to take them on a walk and of course it’s okay if they’re wearing pajamas.

Have an unflinching presence in the face of grief. There, you may be part of God’s vision. 

I pray we become more willing to be present to the pain of this world. Perhaps then, we might be able to transform it, together.