Mourning

From my journal: “It’s 11:43 pm on Sunday, April 28…. I … listened to ward conference on Zoom. ___ and ___ went to church. ___ and ___ spoke. ___ talked about the circumstances surrounding ___’s celiac disease diagnosis. It was the saddest story. She was so depleted of energy and so malnourished when they finally were concerned enough to take her to Children’s in ___. Her poor body was in metabolic acidosis. She was barely responsive the morning they took her. I thought a lot about ___ and how tired and thin he was by the time we took him in. These poor kids. Around 12:30 or 12:40 pm… I was talking to ___ about this and I broke down in tears thinking about ___ and ___ …. I also thought about how ___ and I should have been able to talk to each other about this, or ___ and ___ and I should have been able to talk to each other about these things (___ and ___ both having celiac disease), but my temple recommend situation and our church situation in general has gotten in the way. We can’t simply mourn with those that mourn because the church and our traditions get in the way….“

Sorrowing for the world

The latest song I’ve been listening to on repeat: Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers. Spotify told me at the end of 2023 that I’m a vampire and “when it comes to your listening, you like to embrace a little… darkness. You listen to emotional, atmospheric music more than most.” I’ve been trying to figure out if this is a good or bad thing.

More than anything else in this song, the following refrain hits me – not because I’m well acquainted with the feeling, but because I know there are many people who are: “Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time. And that’s just how I feel. Always have and I always will, I always have and always will.”

To some, it might seem irreverent to use ‘Jesus Christ’ as an exclamation in this way. But, I can’t help believing Jesus is someone who would not be offended by such a cry of anguish, even by someone who is an ‘unbeliever’. After all, he was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” by far my preferred description of him (Isaiah 53:3). I believe he keenly felt and sorrowed for the sorrows of the world and he came to comfort and console.

I also want to feel the sorrows of the world and learn how to comfort and console. Maybe that’s why I tend to “embrace a little… darkness” in my choice of music and movies. As I’ve written elsewhere, I find in these things “...sparks of serious, poignant, touching, crushing, inspiring human experience. And I sit, like an idiot, holding back tears as I soak up these lessons and let these experiences, as a proxy, pass through me. And I’m coming to believe that I’m better for having had the ‘experience.’“

I hope people will listen to this beautiful and sad song. When there’s true connection between human beings, it becomes difficult to indulge in our own happiness and peace while we’re surrounded by people wondering if they’ll ever be able to find these things again.

I’m singin’ at a funeral tomorrow
For a kid a year older than me
And I’ve been talking to his dad, it makes me so sad
When I think too much about it, I can’t breathe
And I have this dream where I’m screamin’ underwater
While my friends are all waving from the shore
And I don’t need you to tell me what that means
I don’t believe in that stuff anymore

Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time
And that’s just how I feel
Always have and I always will
I always have and always will

I have a friend I call
When I’ve bored myself to tears
And we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves
But then we laugh until it disappears
And last night, I blacked out in my car
And I woke up in my childhood bed
Wishing I was someone else, feeling sorry for myself
When I remembered someone’s kid is dead

Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time
And that’s just how I feel
Always have and I always will
I always have and always will

And it’s 4AM again
And I’m doing nothing
Again