Jim was a young adult when his dad died suddenly. He has supported his mom. He’s working on his own life. But I as I was thinking about him this morning, I realized that there is a gap.

It’s not the very real gap of not having a dad. I sometimes see the sense of loss when we talk. There is grief. 

But the grief isn’t why he doesn’t know some basic things about home maintenance, what to me feel like basic concepts about tools and about how things work. That’s a gap in his learning that’s a result of the loss (as opposed to the death) of his dad. For his mom, there’s a gap in economic support.

I’m starting to think about the grief and the gap.

God talks regularly about caring for widows and orphans. It’s easy to think of that being grief support. The kind of emotional encouraging that we attempt to provide. At the time, God’s concern was economic support. It was having the woman and the children having a means of support, of being connected to the community. 

Often there’s not much we can do to help somebody with their grieving process. There’s processing of loss-related challenges and sorting out how to recalibrate living. Listening, being present, remembering the death and important dates, delivering coffee and casseroles are helpful. Often there is much we could do to mind the gap. In Jim’s case, it means moving from wondering why he doesn’t know things to helping him learn by working alongside. Gaps are also discovered by listening and being present.

I may come back to this idea, to discover whether grief and gap are useful concepts or just nice alliteration.

But I’m guessing that it’s helping a couple of you think.