Who Showed Up?

Sacred Sorrows welcomes back Christy Bronson - a native Arizonan, mother of ten, nature lover and bibliophile. She has been blessed by the gentle ministry of Sacred Sorrows whose creative practices and community of women have helped to fill up the empty spaces left by the loss of her oldest son, Johnathan, who entered eternal life at age 26 in 2022.

I don’t remember if it occurred days, weeks or months after my son Johnny’s sudden death in a car accident that my neighbor, a girl of only 23, walked over to my house to visit. She found me on my front porch, lying down on an outdoor sofa, tears smeared on my face, my body limp. Kayda had grown up with my older set of kids. As teens they got into a little bit of mischief together, but nonetheless, she was always welcome at our house. She still calls me “Mama Bronson.” 

She took in the scenario, instantly assessing the full picture of things. In an unhindered act of sensitivity far beyond her years, without any hesitation or embarrassment, she walked over to me and placed herself on top of me. She covered my body with hers. In a profound irony, her full weight unburdened me and gave me welcome relief.

Ever since my husband’s passing nine months before my son’s, I had felt unmoored, unanchored and unbalanced - the ground beneath me always shifting. Choose any suitable analogy – a ship lost at sea, fault lines broken open in an earthquake, the pieces of a puzzle scattered across a tabletop. That was how my life felt. And my body –  limbs heavy, muscles tired, heart slowly beating, lungs taking in shallow breaths, had become collateral damage.  Suddenly, in that moment with her lying on top of me, I became grounded to the earth. She put her head next to mine, our faces touching. She didn’t say a word. Something deep within resonated. Her gesture, a purely primal act, ignited a warmth which gently soothed me. It was akin to something sacramental, conferring a healing grace upon me.

So many people showed up for me in both of my great losses but in that profound gesture I felt safe and understood, my deep grief validated in a way nothing else had done. Empathy without words. 

Recently, I’ve been journaling through a workshop that Sacred Sorrows is offering. We meet online once a week to share our journaling, our sorrow, and our progress on this path of healing which has not been mapped out for us. We are a company of women who have lost a child or a grandchild, or in some cases, more than one. We encounter a holy friendship with one another that is based on understanding and compassion. I have been surprised equally by experiences of grieving that are similar and dissimilar to mine. It is not easy, this work of recovery in grief, but in this holy company of women, I find my journaling can be productive and purposeful. It has helped me start to put those pieces back together. 

This week’s assignment was to reflect on who, or who didn’t, show up in our grief.  As I honor my young neighbor who showed up carrying empathy without words, I also honor the women alongside me who share their words and their hearts with me.