“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
Matthew 5:4 KJV
*self explanatory (wasn’t deeply touched on, maybe a sentence just saying those who grieve will be comforted)
This one's so long that I will put a read more in it.
I feel like this is one of the more clear cut themes this year to understand. Those who grieve/mourn will be comforted. And in that little video I watched that’s about all that was said about it too.
This one though I think can easily go in so many different directions. There’s so many different forms of grief.
We mourn for those we lose, toys that break, for little things, for big things, the intangible, for things that we hoped would happen but never did, for things that never were, for the things that change and will never be the same and more.
With this particular verse and theme I think that the whole verse should be considered, that with the grief and mourning comes comfort, even if we don’t see it right away…
I have actually been thinking about this in a very roundabout way as of lately. (Going to personal experience again.)
What a blessing it is to be able to mourn and grieve those we have loved. Whether they are forever out of reach in this world, or just no longer part of our daily lives.
I say it’s a blessing to mourn because it’s almost worst to not be able to. My grandparents are a good example of this.
When my dad’s parents passed, there was very little for me to grieve about. I am old enough to remember both and when they passed, but what I did mourn about their being gone, is that they never tried very hard to have a relationship with my brothers and I.
I don’t miss them, I rarely think about them unless it’s in a context like this or in relation to other people. I never get choked up about them. They were just there. Which feels like an awful way to think about your dad’s parents, but when there’s no ties, there’s nothing to really grieve.
On the other hand, I had a bit more of a relationship with my mom’s dad. We saw him at least once a year; if not twice. He always sent us birthday and Christmas cards with cheques and even though he and my mom never got along, us kids never saw that side. So I still miss him, so much more than my paternal grandparents.
I’ve mourned more over a dog than my grandmother who died the same year.
But most of all, I still grieve for my grandmother figure. Who was actually my cousins' grandmother.
She was such a blessing to have in my life. She showed me what a grandmother actually was and five years later, I still miss her and grieve her greatly because she was such a blessing to have known her.
My grief shows what type of woman she was. And grief doesn’t necessarily wait either, just knowing that someone will be gone can start that process.
And yes, I do think that this probably got a little more personal than intended, but it shows the spectrum of how grief can be.
I honestly had no idea how I would react to any of those losses.
My dad’s parents, mild sadness but the day went on without much deviation. My mom's dad? I found out at work at lunch time and immediately broke down into tears after I got off the phone with my mom. My coworkers all gave me hugs and then I went home and curled up in bed and watched cat videos the rest of the afternoon.
My grandmother figure, I immediately broke down in tears, but I don’t actually remember more than that, other than I broke down a few times over the next while about it. I figured for both of them I would take it harder than my dad’s side, but not necessarily how hard I did.
So it’s always a learning curve each time about how it's going to hit. What form is the grief going to take.
And beyond that sort of loss and grief I also can’t help but think about the loss of those who are still living but leave out lives for one reason or another. Like my mom/dad's nearly entire friend group from church ended up moving away in less than six months. Which was incredibly hard on my mom in particular. She still keeps in touch with at least one of them fairly regularly, but it’s just not the same as it was.
It also leaves me thinking about a couple of different mutuals who have experienced similar grief to that in their own way and each time I see those posts, I think about what my parents went through with that, (and me to a lesser extent. I was still pretty little at the time, but I was around their friends all the time, because only one couple had kids my age. The others either had older kids or none, I still think about the girl my age who was one of my best friends at the time. For the longest time I had a picture of her stuck to the side of my dresser beside my bed so that I could see her all the time.)
Even friends who you just grow apart from has some grief/mourning to it, even if it’s not as strong as a full loss. I still think about many of the people who I was close to when I went to school with them.
Or even mourning what could have been.
My mom's mom died long before I was born due to breast cancer. I've often mourned the fact that I never got the chance to meet her in this life. And relatively speaking, not that long ago (in the last couple of years) I came across my grandmother's health information about her hospital trips to treat her cancer. It brought me to tears because it made her that much more real to me. The hole that her not being there had left in my life without ever having known her. Especially as most of the family isn't that close.
Anyways that’s all I really have to say about it now.
The Second Kingdom by bluewinged_songbird (@darling-deerest-dead)
Pairing: James/Sirius, Raising Harry
Rating: T
Word Count: 10k
In the aftermath of Lily's death, James and Sirius struggle to raise Harry together. As if being in your early 20s wasn't already hard enough.
(sequel to The First Kingdom)
saying goodbye (to a best friend) by cosmicwritings
Pairing: James/Lily
Rating: T
Word Count: 8k
"The bedroom door creeps open and Lily, through her snot and tears, is trying to apologise, because she knows Remus has an early shift at Tesco’s tomorrow morning and Peter has got to catch a train to visit his mum and Sirius hasn’t slept much, if at all, since the car crash. She’s trying to apologise, but Harry gets lifted out of her arms and Lily collapses into a sad puddle on the floor, hair in her eyes and mouth. Through the red streaks in her vision, she can see Sirius holding Harry and trying to sooth him, rocking him in his arms back and forth.
She’s trying to apologise, but she can’t get any words out, can only see baby Harry and keeps thinking, James, I wish you were here, I need you here so badly."
or lily becomes a uni student, a girlfriend, a dropout, a wife, a mother and a widow all in the span of four years.
The Climb by greenTeacup
Pairing: Severitus
Rating: T
Word Count: 21k
"…in the event that I, Lily Evans Potter, and my husband, James Potter, become deceased," read Albus, "I do hereby name Severus Snape as sole legal custodian of my son, Harry James Potter, until such a time as he comes of age." He folded his glasses on the table.
"Fuck," said Severus, with feeling.
What is lost stays lost by cavendishbutterfly
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: T
Word Count: 456
Sometimes Harry leaves the castle in the middle of the night, and Draco follows him.
A Grim Old Cat by oliversnape
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Rating: E
Word Count: 14k
Podfic available here
Read by: monarchyofone
Length: 1-2 hours
In which Harry finds comfort in his own routines, solitude, Grimmauld Place, and normality in the sound of incoming trains. He ought to have known a cat would subtly change things to suit its own machinations.
A Lifetime of Memories by OTPshipper98
Pairing: Draco/Harry, James/Lily
Rating: T
Word Count: 368
Podfic available here
Read by: greenmegsnoham
Length: 0-10 minutes
Two weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry found a box in the cellar of Grimmauld Place filled with letters from his parents.
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) by busaikko
Pairing: Remus/Severus/Sirius, Raising Harry AU
Rating: E
Word Count: 26k
Podfic available here
Read by: randomicicle
Length: 3-4 hours
AU. In the aftermath of October 31st, 1981, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black try to set their differences aside to keep Harry safe.
