Those Who Mourn

by Terry Modica

Ralph and I were high school sweethearts, but as I fell in love with him, a fear gripped me.

I had seen my grandmother’s pain when she grieved the loss of her beloved husband. It traumatized her. She never moved past the depression it caused, never accepted life as a single woman. Nanna literally died of a broken heart four years after Pop-pop’s death.

Her suffering caused me to worry that the same thing would happen to me. When Ralph proposed marriage to me, I gladly said yes. But I also began to pray, “Lord, don’t tear us apart! Don’t let Ralph die too soon. Don’t make me suffer like my Nana suffered.”

For 48 years I prayed for this. And then I got the terrible phone call from a nurse telling me that Ralph had died.

Ralph had been weakened by ulcerative colitis. He was only 68 years old and the doctors were sure they could put it into remission. Ralph eventually opted to have his colon removed, and his surgeon felt confident that he would recover and live a normal life again, albeit with an ostomy bag.

Lots of prayer warriors around the world prayed for Ralph’s healing. God kept sending people across our paths with stories about how they – or a loved one – lived a full life with an ostomy bag. They comforted us and reassured us. I had no idea that, three weeks after his surgery, the Lord would call him Home.

The nurse who cared for Ralph at the surgery rehab center called to tell me that he had collapsed and was getting CPR. I sat down and repeatedly cried, “God, don’t take my Ralph away!” A short while later, the nurse called again to say he had been pronounced dead. It felt like the left side of my abdomen had been ripped away – a huge, gaping, open wound.

How do you pray after that? God had ignored my life-long prayer.

My friend Nancy flew in the next day to help me endure the first few weeks of loss. She took over my now-empty prayer life. Daily she led me in prayer. It became a habit. Although it felt like meaningless words offered to a silent God who had let me down in the worst possible way, it was a habit I knew I had to stick with.

After Nancy left, the silence was deafening. I sharply felt the absence of Ralph in every silent moment. I turned on the television or music to stop from hearing the silence. To this day, more than two years since God took Ralph, I still haven’t fully recovered the joy of silence.

A good prayer life includes sitting silently, aware of God’s presence, listening for His voice. So what do you do when the silence feels like your enemy?

Photo by Tolga Ahmetler on Unsplash

I learned how to use sound for the quiet time of silent prayer.

YouTube is a great resource for this. I found “Catholic Morning Prayer.” It includes the Gospel of the day sandwiched between a variety of Catholic prayers and intercessory prayers. It became my crutch, continuing what Nancy had begun.

As time moved forward, I healed enough to pause the video to allow my thoughts to travel from audible prayer to silent prayer. Gradually, this morning ritual expanded into heart-felt communication with God that lasted longer than I had ever prayed when Ralph was alive.

Another sound-filled source of silent prayer comes from sitting on my porch and listening to the birds. If it’s breezy, I pay attention to the rustling of leaves. And I think about God’s presence. The birds are praising God. The rustling leaves are glorifying their Creator.

As part of this morning ritual, I savor my morning hot chocolate (I don’t like coffee; chocolate is a wonderful way to start the day). I think about the Father sitting with me. I imagine Jesus drinking a cup of cocoa. I ask the Holy Spirit to inspire me.

Rituals are what get us through the painful days of adjusting to loss. Rituals are spiritual habits. When we continue a ritual for two weeks, it starts to become easier. Four weeks later, the prayer ritual feels like an important part of the day you don’t want to miss.

Our real enemy is not silence. It’s the demon that doesn’t want you to have a good prayer life. It whispers in your head: “I don’t feel like doing this today. I’ll listen to a video that has nothing to do with prayer. I’d rather busy myself with work.” Self-discipline is the sword that chases this enemy away.

Fortunately, God wired our brains to favor rituals. Every time we sit down for a designated prayer time, neurons are fired up to strengthen the desire to repeat the pattern.

At first, the neural pathway is weak. We must put effort into self-discipline. We can make this easier by always sitting in the same place, same chair, at roughly the same time of day. All of this breeds a sense of familiarity that the brain likes.

As the days go by, the neural connections speed up. The brain needs less energy to get us into a spirit of prayer. Now the neurons begin to trigger activity in the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain used for conscious decisions). Our brain evokes the self-discipline of choosing to repeat our special prayer time.

As we continue our prayer routine day after day, the brain gradually passes the familiarity of the ritual to the basal ganglia, which automates our desire to keep going. This conserves our brain’s energy even more than before. Our brain is happy! What was once a stress-filled attempt to feel God’s presence after He took away our loved one is now restful.

However, feeling restful is not enough to keep us praying in the midst of grief. It’s important to connect the prayer time to some kind of reward. Pat yourself on the proverbial back at the end of each prayer session. Tell yourself, “Well done!” even if your mind wandered.

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What did you need from God? In the silence did you feel His comfort? Or sense a promise? Or experience a new insight? Celebrate these. This produces dopamine in the brain, which communicates to our conscious thoughts that our prayer ritual is worth repeating. As the days pass, our brains crave the rewards as soon as we sit down in the ritualized prayer chair. Praying feels easier. This triggers more dopamine.

Another gift that God gave to use when He created our brains is a nifty coat of myelin, a fatty insulating layer that speeds electrical signals. Settling into our time alone with God becomes smoother, faster, and less emotionally draining.

Thus we can use our prayer ritual to sense the presence of God and receive a big dose of love even while the pain of loss is still significant. We can cry on His shoulder and be aware that His hug is not just from our imagination. We can sit quietly in our prayer chair and experience God.

This won’t be true every day. Mourning is a long, multi-year process that never completely heals until we rejoin our loved one in the after-life. Prayer rituals become “easy” before they become “permanent,” and from time to time our new prayer life will get interrupted. Stress, illness, schedule changes, and emotional overload can temporarily disrupt our daily prayers. Even well-established rituals. But thanks to God’s loving creativity, the neural pathways we formed are still whisking signals to the prefrontal cortex.

By using self-discipline to return to our special prayer time and place, and by rewarding ourselves for accomplishing this, it doesn’t take as much effort as it did at the beginning. Don’t skip this reward! We all have a tendency to beat up ourselves for failing to keep our commitments. God doesn’t do this to us. He is rewarding us with a big smile and open arms. Look for it. Expect it.

Remember these key points about how the brain works to help you have a good prayer life:

• Consistency in the ritual matters more than the intensity of our prayers.
• The brain changes through the self-discipline of repetition, not self-motivation.
• Short daily prayers reshape the brain more effectively than occasional bursts of effort.

The process of forming a ritual of praying daily teaches the brain that “This is part of normal life now.” Our grief-ridden emotions recognize that “This is a good part of my new normal.” And we begin to accept that our new normal is being held lovingly in the hands of God.

I am not my grandmother. I’m adjusting to the single life. I know that Ralph is with me, praying along with me. My new normal is not what I had wanted, but it’s okay. My daily prayers connect me to the “It’s okay” of God’s concern and care.

It’s not likely that I’ll stop missing Ralph on this side of Heaven’s gate. But that’s okay too. In the sound-filled silence of my morning prayers, I know that I am well loved.

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