Tricia Lott Williford (Faith-Based Author, Speaker) – Part 2

Today is Part 2 of my conversation with Tricia Lott Williford (please read Part 1 if you haven’t already).

Yesterday, Tricia and I discussed faith and theological deconstruction in the midst of incapacitating grief. We discovered, to both of our surprise, that the grief surrounding the losses of our loved ones (Tricia’s husband and my triplet sons, which happened in the same six month span) informed and influenced the other’s grief without either of us realizing it. We talked about the tension of enjoying the blessings of a second husband and three more children while living in the reality of a grief that’s never fully finished with us.

Today is the completion of our conversation. We discuss how Tricia talks about her first marriage with those unfamiliar with her story and what sort of advice she gives to those newly experiencing overwhelming grief. Also, we consider the possibility that grief could ever become a place of comfort, as opposed to only a place of pain. Finally, Tricia reexamines her thoughts on the reliability of faith and the nature of spiritual deconstruction.

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Tricia: I can’t remember if I wrote it into And Life Comes Back or not, but there was a dream that I had where Robb and I were in the kitchen. He had been gone for about a year and we were in the kitchen together and we were making macaroni and cheese. And he was slamming cupboards. It was real passive aggressive, like “I’m mad, but I’m not gonna tell you what I’m mad about. Just notice that I’m mad, I’m angry with you.” And in my dream I was so glad to see him that I was like, “Hey, tell me what you need.” I was like a puppy, following him around in the kitchen. “Tell me, tell me.” And he turned to me and he took me by both shoulders. And he said, “You have to stop grieving me.” And then I woke up.

Jeremy: Sheezis.

He was mad at me because in my mind I was still making space for him.

Hmm.

That dream only happened one time, but the dissonance happened again and again in the sense of… like, I would get a new couch and: ‘Robb’s never seen this couch. I don’t know if he’s gonna be okay with how it fits in the living room. How would he feel about a red couch?’

Any time there would be something new that would close the gap, that would no longer leave space for a place where he sat in my home, I had to reconcile that again. I was just like, ‘Is this okay? Is it all right that I don’t want to drive a minivan anymore? Is it okay that I’m selling his car?’ And he said to me in my dream, “You have to STOP. THIS.”

Yeah. It’s… not a lie necessarily, but… this perception that there’s this perpetual honoring that has to happen and it’s beyond what’s helpful.

Yeah, I can’t live his life for him forever. His is over.

Right, he’s not diminished by your living a beautiful life.

The fact that he came and gave me permission, that he was just like, “Listen, I’m not releasing you, I’m irritated with you. I’m actually mad at you for the way you’re handling this.” Like, “Go fly, free bird,” as you have said. “Go, get on with it.”

That’s beautiful though.

Yeah.

So… I’ve had a certain experience many times over the years and I know it’s an experience that you know very well. A person in pain sees that I understand what they’re feeling because I’ve lived it. And they ask me, “What do I do? I mean, does this get better? How did you handle it?” What do we tell them? What do you tell them?

Mm. Alright, here’s what I tell them. I say, “This is terrible. And I’m so sorry that this happened to you. And the thing you have to know is that you get a new playbook now. All the rules are different. Because all of those people, they live on Planet Earth, and you live on Planet Someone I Love Has Died. And those are different worlds.”

Mm -hmm.

“And so here’s what that looks like. You get a permanent permission slip to not show up to things. You don’t have to go. You also can go and leave five minutes later when you discover, ‘No, I can’t. Peace out.’ You don’t have to explain. You get to do this for as long as you need to.”

Right.

“You also get to take a day off from sadness when people see you laughing and they say, ‘I thought your daughter died earlier this year.’ ‘Yeah, you know what, she did. We’re taking a day off. It’s hard work to grieve. So, we’re going to stop for today.”

Yeah. Yeah.

I do have a standard prescription that I write, which is: you get a permission slip to feel how you feel for as long as you feel, for as long as it feels that way. Whether it is joy when it doesn’t make sense or sadness when people think you should be fine by now. You get to do either one of those. The second thing is: you only ever have to do the next thing.

And sometimes the next thing is, ‘I need a glass of water. I need to go back to bed.’ For a long time, I went to Starbucks because that was the only way I could be sure I would stay out of bed. And so it became this anchor for me, but only because, like, ‘If I’m here, I’m out.’ I got to get out of this house so that I won’t die.

Yeah.

There was a time when I was contemplating, like, “Can I make this? Can I survive this?” “Yeah, you’re allowed. Let’s just not make that decision today. Let’s evaluate tomorrow.” And so there’s grace in the choice. Once I realized… because I was pretty angry, now that you mention it.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, “I have no choice but to live this story.” And [my therapist] Jana was like, “You have a choice. You don’t have to do this. There will be consequences for that choice, but you get to make the choices. You get to decide if you want to live or die.” And then there was something empowering about that that. I was like, “Well, if I get to choose, then I’d like for my children to not be completely orphaned. I’ll do that for them.”

Yeah.

So, what I also speak to quite a bit is the people surrounding the person who is cracked in half. Because they come to me and they say, “Hey, my sister’s husband just died. She’s in bad shape. Can she talk to you?” A: No. She cannot talk to me. Because I can’t. You’re the one she needs to talk to.

Right, right. Yeah.

Be in it with her. B: You have no idea how easy it is for me to get tanked by this. So this is a very careful chemistry here. And I can’t take on her grief. And C: You need to let her have a hard time.

So those are the things that I say. It takes as long as it takes. I also say plan on at least two years, because people really want a timeline.

Hm. I hadn’t heard that two-year thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first year was for my head to make sense of what had happened. And the second year was for my heart to make sense of what happened. So the first calendar year, I was simply just living day to day and like, “Valentine’s Day is coming. How am I gonna do that one? Our wedding anniversary is coming, how am I gonna do that one?” Like, “I just gotta figure out the nuts and bolts of a life right now.” But I was frozen and I was numb. And so I didn’t really feel anything until a year later. And that second year was, in a lot of ways, more emotional and more taxing because it was my heart. I could feel it now. So, for sure two years with a sprinkling of sunny days.

Right.

It’s gonna be really bad for two years. And there’s something freeing about that because then people are delighted if they get a day off before that two years is up and they don’t expect there to be any reprieve. It’s a marathon. ‘I gotta make sense of why I’m not gonna go to church on Mother’s Day because I’m in the two years.‘

You know, one thing that I remember experiencing and also just encountering this in other people—even people who are freshly in it—they’re nervous that they will one day stop grieving.

Mmm.

Which seems strange, but I remember… we hadn’t even gone home from the hospital yet and [our doctor] said to Carey, “Okay, I’m gonna prescribe this to you.” And I don’t remember what she prescribed, but it was depression-related. And she said, “You need to take this every single day. Please do it.” And Carey said, “But if I take this, what if I don’t feel it?”

And the doctor understood what she was saying. And the doctor said, “You will feel it.” Because that was Carey’s worry. “I don’t want to be numb to this.” She also didn’t know how she was going to continue, so it was this really odd thing.

And I found that people that are freshly in it have asked me the same thing. “Does it stop? Because I don’t know that I want it to stop.” And I get that. And I don’t think that’s something that’s apparent or obvious to people that haven’t lived this, that you’re nervous that you’re going to have to give up this grief someday. And that’s something that feels a little tough to do.

You know, the cliché is true and it’s something that I don’t hesitate to tell people in this position every time, which is, “I promise you, this will always be hard. But it won’t always be this hard. It’s important for you to know that.”

Mmm.

And I don’t usually say this next part unless I feel like it’s something that would be received well, but I’ll sometimes say, you know, “There’s going to be be a day that you’re going to be grateful for this grief. It’s going to be a gift in your life.” The grief is a gift in my life, put it that way. I’m still angry and sad. It’s been 13 years; I’m still angry and sad. And I’m so grateful for that anger and that sadness that I still have, that still stabs me in the belly button… sometimes when I don’t know it’s coming, but I’m much better now at knowing when it is.

Because I know what that is. It’s there because my kids lived. And they meant something. And they continue to mean something. And it’s important that that’s still in the world. And that pain, you know, even more than my tattoo or anything else, is the best reminder that I have.

And so I always try to be careful to remind people: “You’re never going to be robbed of this. You will always have this.“

Man, just today at lunch, it was somebody’s wedding anniversary. And so everybody around the table was like, “Well, how long have you been married? How long have you been married?” And I thought, “I’m not gonna say it because it’s just gonna rain on everybody’s parade.” But 24 years is how long. 24 years to this man and eight years to this one.

My gosh, I know that question. And the bullshit cycle my brain goes through when someone says, “So, how many kids do you have?”

“How many kids do you have?”

And the answer doesn’t just fly right out, you know? You skip on it a little bit.

You do. You skip on it. And part of me is trying to figure out if these people can handle it. Can the room handle it? Is this gonna suck all the air out of this room? Do I want the next comment? Do I want the, “Ugh… ugh… sorry.” Okay, well you didn’t know him, you didn’t know me, you don’t know any of this. So, you know what? “Eight years, we’re gonna celebrate eight years in May.”

Dude, yeah, that’s where I am. The answer is ‘three children.’ Apologies to the universe, that is my answer. Because I’m just not gonna have that conversation right now.

“I’m just not gonna have that conversation right now.” I like that.

One of the things that has sustained me every single day for the last 13 years is the Book of Psalms. I read it every single day.

Wow. Amazing.

It’s not a hero thing. It’s not a spiritual discipline. It’s a lifeline. I drink my coffee and I brush my teeth and I read the Book of Psalms. And I’ve copied the Book of Psalms from beginning to end. And I’ve worn out two Bibles. “Let me just copy it until I figure out how to say it.” And Psalm 88 is just ashes from beginning to end. It’s so refreshing because there isn’t a, “…But I will glorify the Lord, His name will be praised.” There isn’t any of that. It literally ends with, “I’d rather be dead.” And I loved that that Psalm made it through all the drafts of the canonization of the Bible. Because it’s fair and because I’m allowed to feel that way.

But this week I was reading, I think, 86. It’s the one that says, “When you walk through the valley of weeping, the autumn rains will turn the ground into fertile soil” or “blessings” or something like that. So I just started writing, like, what does that actually mean to me? Because it’s true. It’s what you were just saying. Like, this is a sacred grief. Don’t take it away from me.

So, in that Robin Williams movie [What Dreams May Come], that depiction when he goes into her isolation of Hell, and it’s all gray, and it’s all trees that are all bare, and there’s no life, and you can hear the branches breaking under your feet because it’s all dry. There’s nothing good here.

And so I wrote about going into that space that’s the valley of weeping and the darkness. That barren space, it’s so cold and it’s so empty, and I’m the only one here. Nobody can go here with me. But then right in the middle of it, there’s this cottage.

And in the cottage, there’s a light on inside. There’s something here. And I go into it and I discover that it’s full. It’s lined with books. On all of the shelves of this place, books that are tried and tested and I can read about theology or psychology or writing or parenting or fiction or nonfiction or short stories that are escapist or heavy novels that I have to wrestle with and I can stay for as long as I want. And there’s a bed that’s just so welcoming.

And then there’s just a table for two people. There’s just bread and butter. And it’s really good bread and really good butter. But that’s all there is and it’s just simple. And I can stay for years, or I can stay for hours. And I’m the only one in here. Except that there’s this other chair. Because I’m not alone.

And then the weather changes and you look outside and things start to turn a little bit green. So, I can stay long enough to get my courage and get my bearings and catch my breath and sleep for a minute or two years. And then I can step outside, but I’m free to come back at any time. And so the Valley of Weeping is no longer a threatening place to me. In fact, I’m a little nostalgic for it.

Not for the pain, I don’t want the pain. But because in that, there’s gonna be this that’s waiting for me though. I do get to go to that beautiful place. I get to go to that place with all the books and the bread and butter. I can stay in there. It’s fine. It’s just me and this other chair.

That’s so beautiful.

Well, thank you, it feels rambly right now.

No. Beautiful. So beautiful.

There’s something about that as you were explaining it, it just felt like, ‘Okay, that’s the sacredness of it. Don’t take that from me. That can’t be taken from me.’ And sometimes I have to just leave all of this so that I can go back to that place of, ‘Yeah, I can’t do this at your pace, everybody. I can’t do this. I’m out. But I’ve got that place to go to.’

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The next day, Tricia sent an email. She’d rethought the beginning of our conversation about faith and deconstruction. This is what she wrote:

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I woke up this morning thinking, “I got it wrong.  I have to talk to him again.  I got it wrong.” But I didn’t know what I’d gotten wrong, because everything about those three hours was perfectly right.  Just, something wasn’t right. I’ve been sitting with it all day, letting it take shape.  I’ve been patient with it, waiting for it to bloom. I’ve been in an achey, poured out place today, where it feels like I moved a lot of furniture yesterday.  In a way, I kind of did.  More than I’ve moved in a long, long time.

[My therapist] Jana reminds me that emotional work takes a physical toll, that the best conversations can wear like a marathon. So I’ve been patient and sleepy, and then patient with sleep, and then sleepily patient. It’s been a slow morning, in the way of a slow harvest. But I found it. I know what I got wrong.

Let’s unpack this, please.

It starts here: Jeremy asked, “Did you ever go through a deconstruction?”

Oh, yes.  Yes, yes, yes.

When my boys were small, Legos were a whole thing. (Please never you mind about bothering to tell me that the plural of Legos is actually Lego. I cannot with this. I need some things to feel right in my mouth, and plural Lego will never be right. Let me be wrong about Legos being right.) Anyway, we were up to our necks in the Legos scene. The sun rose and set around their Lego creations on the floor, on the coffee table, in the bathtub, and sometimes even in my pillowcase. My sons were builders. 

I remember when they would build something big and tall and glorious, a tower of their own making. “Look, Mommy. Look how strong and tall my ___________ [spaceship, castle, tower, etc.] is!” And then Molly, our chocolate lab, would pick up on the excitement in their voices, and she’d walk by and wag her tail, and the whole structure would start to sway.  Panic would ensue as they rushed in to make repairs. 

From my taller and wiser vantage point, I might say something like, “Hey, pal, what if you . . . maybe you need to . . . “

But my young builder would say, “No! Mommy! Don’t touch it! I made it! Don’t touch it!” 

“But it’s going to crash, honey.” 

“This is what I want it to look like, Mommy. Don’t touch it.” 

“I won’t touch it. I’m just making a suggestion. If you build a broader base over here, or maybe if you add some pillars over here . . . ” 

Essentially, I was saying, “If you are willing to deconstruct this and build a firmer foundation, this is going to be even better later on.” 

Sometimes, when you look again at what’s holding things up, you find the wobbles and the lack of support and the pieces not quite connecting. Sometimes, rebuilding makes the whole structure stronger. Sometimes we must unbuild in order to rebuild. 

I’ve built some wobbly structures to house my belief systems, Jeremy. You know them well. We literally come from the very same Lego factory. I mean, I felt like they looked good on the outside, but essentially what I had was a house of cards, ready to topple over on a breeze. I couldn’t see the flaws in my construction, and it made me very uncomfortable when anyone questioned what I’d built. 

If this isn’t solid, if this falls down around me, then what have I spent all this time building? 

Take a look at the life map I had constructed, for example. I actually thought I was an example of his favor for a life well lived, a reward in exchange for my three decades of obedience. I thought he had been so kind to me because he loved me so much. After all, he’s a good, good Father who works all things for the good of those who love him. Put a bow on this, I thought. Obey God, and he gives you the life you want, I thought. Smooth all of that with a frosting theology of grace to cover any mistakes in my math, and you’ve got yourself a formula for God’s favor and faithfulness. 

It wasn’t just that I thought A + B = C. I had created some sort of complex algebraic formula, where, if you compute all the factors, you get Faithfulness and Favor. But, get one single factor a little bit off, and you’ve lost your equation for Faithfulness and Favor.  

That’s exhausting and impossible.  And also that’s legalism, the personal hell we create for ourselves when we rely excessively on moral laws, rules, and formulas. 

And in the end, trying to do everything right didn’t “pay off” for me. My formula for favor was actually an algorithm for a great unraveling. It was deeply unsettling. A house of cards in a wind storm.

Or, a Lego tower in the path of a dog’s tail. My construction was unbuilding.

But if I were to survive this kind of unbuilding, I would have to take apart what I had believed or understood about God. Maybe all the pieces might fit together in a different way, or maybe I was missing pieces altogether, or maybe we picked up some of the wrong pieces in the first place.  I panicked the same way my boys did.  “Don’t touch it!”

But the truth is, living with a faith that is static and unmoving doesn’t leave room for God to be who he is. 

We aren’t all-knowing people. Some of what we were taught, or what we have believed, very well could be taking us away from him rather than closer to him. In the midst of the scary noise, there’s a deeper reality: We have to unbuild in order for our faith to grow.

When my boys’ Lego towers threatened to topple over, I had a few suggestions. Essentially, I was saying, “If you are willing to deconstruct this and build a firmer foundation, this is going to be even better later on. I have a little more life experience to see; all you need is this one other thing.” 

In the aftermath of the decade following The Worst Thing, God coached me, “Trish, it’s okay. What you have is very beautiful. I’m just asking you to take what you’ve continued to learn about me and renovate your foundation.” 

When you depend on a formula, you have put God in a box. When that formula breaks, you meet a bigger, stronger God who doesn’t need boxes at all. 

So, circling back. When you asked if I deconstructed, yes I did. But before that, you asked if there was a time when my faith couldn’t go the distance.

And that’s the thing I answered wrong.  Or the answer I would change, on this afternoon after an achey morning of sleepy patience.

In all of my unbuilding, I still believed there was a God, that he made me, he made this, and he knew what was going on. That is faith. When you or I say that we are persons of faith, that’s what it boils down to me for me: You and I each believe that there is a God, that he made us, he made this, and he is aware of what’s going on.

But I don’t understand why he’s not fixing it.

I don’t understand why Robb died.

I don’t understand why your boys were created and then not sustained.

I don’t understand what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, why he sees this is a good way to love us.

And I don’t understand what he’s in charge of and what he can change, why he sometimes steps in and why he sometimes lets the pieces fall.

But I keep believing he is there.  That he made me, he made this, and he is aware of what’s going on, and that I want to trust him.  When I can’t, I want to want to. And that is faith.  That part is solid.

It’s the understanding that messes with me.

Was there a time when my faith couldn’t go the distance?  No. But my understanding came woefully short of the journey. And the only good thing about that is that faith isn’t about understanding. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.  It’s the belief in the face of unbelief, the stubborn insistence in the things I cannot understand.

So it isn’t my faith that couldn’t go the distance.  It was my understanding.

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Tricia’s latest book, You Are Safe Now, is written with her therapist, Jana Richardson, LPC. It tells the story of the private trauma that occurred soon after she lost her husband: grooming, manipulation, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse by a person of trust. Tricia and Jana have written a resource to help others recognize the veiled dynamics of abuse, where it starts, how it escalates, and how survivors can break free and find freedom. 

In addition to her books on grief, marriage, family and Bible-related topics, she’s also a bestselling collaborator, who has helped many dynamic individuals tell their own stories.

Tricia’s work and online journal can be found at TriciaLottWilliford.com.