Psalm 42:7 NIV: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”
One of the great explorations of personal grief is the book “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. Reading her book, speaking to friends who have grieved, and walking through my own bouts of loss, I think one of the ubiquitous experiences of grief is its wave-like nature. Didion says, “Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”
Even David, the great psalmist, visualized despair in this way with this verse from Psalm 42. In the verse just before this, David writes, “O my God, my soul is in despair within me…”
The wave analogy is a perfect metaphor for grief in so many ways. It’s hard to predict which waves will knock you over and which will just fizzle out. Waves never stop; even when there seems to be a lull, you know soon enough, the next one will come from the deep and crash on the shore. Waves often are carriers, bearing detritus from unexpected places. Isn’t this what happens with loss? A sudden smell or song is heard, and a wave of sorrow sweeps over us without warning. We see a photo from the past and are transported back as aches of what was let loose inside. At the beginning of grief, the waves pound relentlessly, and we wonder if they will pound us into the sand. In time, they space out, and we can catch our breaths, but they never go entirely away.
Can you think of other ways that waves fit as a metaphor for grief?
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