Last weekend Jim and I attended a marriage conference at Cannon Beach. I wondered if we’d be the oldest couple married the least amount of time. We weren’t the oldest, for there was a couple married 63 years–and this was their first ever marriage conference! There was a couple–considerably younger than us–who were married only four months.

At the conference, there was a lot we’d heard before. There were new concepts to learn. One was: “We’re grieving life.”

“That’s depressing one might say.” No. Since Adam and Eve chose to disobey, there’s been a grief of what might have been.

I was feeling sad. Because I was a nearly one year bride? No. I was sad because of what might have been. I wished I’d had some of the tools we were given at this conference when I was a nineteen year old bride. I wished I’d had them when I was a thirty-something woman who was in a dysfunctional marriage that might have better with some of these tools. But that was not to be.

I remember the first time I suffered grief when I should have been happy. I was walking down the aisle, after being pronounced “wife” to my late husband, Bill. Why was I sad? I couldn’t put my finger on it and soon the sadness passed. Later, I read having those feelings of grief were natural. I was grieving my life as it was. Now I was moving into a new life. It was wonderful. But it was new. And that’s grief.

I’ve found there are many types of grief. The stark grief of losing someone in death. The lesser grief of a broken engagement. The grief of an empty nest. The grief of time, slipping away. The grief of realizing there’ll not be anymore new grand babies, just great-grandbabies. The grief of a beautiful scene.

I’m glad I attended the seminar. I love my life. My husband. But…..there’s still that niggling, lost feeling that wiggles its way into my being. Grief.

When we go to Heaven, we’ll not experience grief anymore. That is a gift I’m looking forward to. Just not yet.