MY DAD died suddenly from a disease so rare within the UK that doctors almost missed it entirely: cryptic malaria. It was a diagnosis almost unheard of — the disease probaby contracted during a visit to Hamburg, and even at Heathrow. The odds were minuscule. And yet it happened.
It didn’t seem real, then. Some days, it still doesn’t. Wednesday (twenty third) marked the primary anniversary of his death. In some ways, it appears like a lifetime; in others, like yesterday.
In the weeks that followed, people tried to supply comfort. “Don’t let your pain change you,” some said. But isn’t that the purpose? Pain does change us. It modified Jesus.
When he stood outside Lazarus’s tomb, the group murmured, “Look how much he loved him.” Jesus, fully divine and fully human, wept. He sobbed. That moment matters deeply to me now. In his tears, I see permission to mourn — a sacred permission that each tear matters. His grief binds him to us. There is togetherness in our pain, and that changes the whole lot.
That’s the thing about grief: it doesn’t follow logic or fairness. It has no script — no manual, no checklist, no step-by-step guide. We’re all stumbling forward, figuring it out as we go. That’s why grace is important — grace for ourselves, grace for others. We grieve in a different way. We heal imperfectly. And we feature the scars, not as shame, but as a part of the story.
MY DAD knew something about walking with others through pain. He fostered me after I was just 15, when life had offered more closed doors than open ones. He didn’t just give me a roof: he gave me a house of belonging. He became my family. He taught me to like life without limits.
And perhaps that’s why I’ve often considered Joseph — Jesus’s earthly father — who also stepped into an element he didn’t expect, loving a toddler that wasn’t biologically his. The Bible is usually silent on Joseph’s death, but we realize it happened. And that silence now speaks volumes to me. Jesus likely bore that grief quietly, entering into the responsibilities that Joseph left behind.
Craig along with his father, Gary
But Joseph was not Jesus’s only loss. His cousin, John the Baptist, was executed by a corrupt despot. Another blow. And then got here Lazarus. When Jesus arrived and located him 4 days gone, he didn’t preach. He didn’t explain. He wept.
Jesus gets it. He gets me. His suffering wasn’t detached or sanitised — it was real, raw, and rooted in love. That truth became an anchor for me. Because, after I lost my dad, I didn’t need a theory. I needed a Saviour who understood.
And, even in his suffering, Jesus looked outward. The Gospels say that he had compassion on the crowds. The Latin root — compati — means “to suffer with”. That’s exactly what Jesus does. He co-suffers. He stays. He weeps with us.
IN THE early months of my grief, I discovered myself held — not only by God, but by the people he sent to walk beside me. Friends who prayed, cried, and remembered. Family who stood after I couldn’t stand alone.
Their presence jogged my memory of Ruth walking beside Naomi: “Where you go, I’ll go.” That’s what grace looks like — individuals who stay and pray.
And it made me consider geese flying in formation. They take turns leading. They honk encouragement to 1 one other. When one falls behind, others stay until it might probably fly again.
That’s what community looks like. That’s how we are supposed to grieve: not in isolation, but in formation.
And, in some way — mysteriously, tenderly — God turned my father’s death into an odd, sacred gift. Not since the loss wasn’t real, but since the love was. A love shared in community. A love anchored in Christ. A greater love, that opened a door to a greater joy in God. Not a brittle form of joy that denies sorrow, but biblical joy. A fruit of the Spirit. A joy rooted in peace, sustained by hope, and strengthened by courage. A joy that whispers: You usually are not alone. A joy that claims: Jesus is here. And he gets it. Because all of the tears, and the stolen years, won’t stop Christ offering communion with me. That is the gift I never expected — and the grace I’ll always remember.
DAD preached the gospel on Sunday, and died on Tuesday. In his final sermon, he wrote this: “We’re all on a journey with Jesus. We know the destination, but we don’t know exactly how we’ll get there or what is going to occur on the best way — that’s the fantastic thing about pilgrimage.”
He was right. And, even through grief, that pilgrimage has brought me more unexpected joy.
This isn’t the way it was imagined to be. And there’s no easy way of travelling on my healing road ahead. I still miss Dad each day. But, now, I carry each sorrow and a greater joy. And I do know I don’t walk alone — not in life, not in grief, not on this pilgrimage.
Grief is hard. But don’t wander off in it, because love is everlasting.
The Revd Craig Philbrick is Vicar of St Paul’s, Weston-Super-Mare, within the diocese of Bath & Wells.
