GOOD GRIEF
One Husband’s Journey from Incapacitating Fear to Overwhelming Joy
by
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Grief is like autumn. There are beautiful things all around to look at as you ponder the beauty and majesty of the divine. But autumn indicates life will be coming to an end…a close. The beauty and tragedy of autumn is overwhelming. As you look around, you can be so taken by God’s majesty and wonder, and yet be overwhelmed by the toil and work you’ll need to expend to clean up the leaves and dead branches.
That’s what the death of my wife has been like for me. Writing this book has helped me to see God’s hand and His direction as I have raked the beautiful leaves, put them into piles, and sent them away in a recycling bin, only for new leaves and more dead branches to fall later, causing me to start over and deal with the fallen debris of grief. Would I do it again? Would I marry the wonderful, strong, amazing woman—the mother of my three children—again? Would I give myself to such a painful end for the blessing of having known and been known by a woman who challenged me, to be better than I thought I could be? In a heartbeat. My wife’s life taught me many things; her death taught me what it truly means to wrestle with darkness and let God be God during the beauty and pain of autumn.
Autumn gives way to winter, the cold, hard truth of death and a time of contemplation, a hibernation of the soul. However, when winter gives way to spring, new life is brought forth, and there is new beauty to behold and new adventures to tackle. Life is a never-ending cycle. But the work of grief itself, the autumn of the soul, is something that is not often talked about in polite society. People who are so overwhelmed they cannot deal with everyday tasks disappear. Others try to press on, fighting to ignore the pain responsible for rending their hearts. And still others are blindsided by the dangers in front of them that they are desperately trying to avoid.
As you read the following pages, know that this is a work of worship and healing, from one broken heart to another. If these words encourage you, I give God all the glory. I could not do this without His amazing love, patience, encouragement, and strength.
While dealing with my own grief and the grief of my boys, I realized that not many Americans are schooled in the emotion of grief. There were many clinical and how-to resources, but none fit what I was looking for to help my boys and me in our specific situation, with autism in the mix. Many find themselves at a loss to know what to do when they encounter one who is grieving. Often, people have the right motives, but because the situation is awkward, their words get in the way. Our society doesn’t do well schooling us about death either. In our earliest memories, we were fearless and dauntless. We thought we would live forever. Often, when people are introduced to their own mortality, their family and friends, and sometimes the whole world, get to witness a significant breakdown or shutdown. Is that wrong? Is it right? I’ve learned that no one walks through the darkness of grief along the same path; it’s different for everyone. God has shown me, however, there are similarities that do pop up every once in a while. Those similarities can teach us how to move through grief, how to wrestle with our own mortality, and eventually, how to expect the angel of death when he comes knocking.
The bigger message, the one that God has been trying to teach me for many years, is found in my quest to find true joy. When your life is overwhelmed by fear and grief, joy—true joy—is difficult to find. It took me a long time to understand the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is from the throne of God. It’s a state to dwell in, no matter what is happening in the tornado swirling about us. I learned to find joy amid the pain, amid the confusion, and amid the numbness.
My prayer as you walk through these pages with me is that you will be blessed, challenged, and healed by the words God used to heal me, my boys, my friends, and my extended family. When you find yourself in the autumn of life, God will meet you in very personal and profound ways. Lean into Him. Let Him lead you through the grove of colorful trees and the beauty and work they represent. Each leaf, each color, each tree will teach you about the Creator of the universe. His desire to walk with you through the toil and beauty memorialized in the autumn of life will become your own unique journey to one day write about so you can help others heal.
My journey from incapacitating fear, through grief, to find joy started in 1986, when I was only thirteen years old.
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About the Book
At age twelve, author Thomas Michael Johnson faced the death of a great-grandparent he was close to as a child. That trauma left him with an irrational fear of losing loved ones. By the time he married and became a father, the fear of death living within him was incapacitating and debilitating, often causing difficulties in his personal and professional life.
Seeking freedom from this terror, Johnson began to understand the difference between joy and happiness; he was delivered from the fear some six weeks before his wife’s untimely demise. After nearly nineteen years of marriage, he woke to find his beloved wife had passed away while he slept. He suddenly became a single parent of three sons (ages seventeen, thirteen, and twelve), struggling through the typical single-parent issues with an added layer of grief. Johnson’s middle son’s autism added to the challenges.
In Good Grief, Johnson shares an account of the trepidation he lived through as a young man, his freedom from the fear of death before his wife died, and the two years following her death. This memoir focuses on the lessons he learned from God directly, from scripture, and from the tight-knit group of family and friends God had given him. Raw and authentic, Johnson chronicles a story of his experience as a grieving widower, a single father, and a broken child of God who had no choice but to ask for help from those surrounding him, while trying to restore joy in his home.
About the Author
Thomas Michael Johnson holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and an MAT in Secondary Education. Known by most as Thom, he lives near Portland, Oregon, with his new bride, three sons, and the family dog. He spends his time adventuring with his wife, gaming with his boys, teaching language arts with middle schoolers, and saving the world with his superheroic imagination. Previously published in a national magazine, this is Johnson’s first book.