The car sat empty at this year's parade. "MISS YOU PAUL," it read instead. Grief can leave us with holes and empty spots in our lives. Some people are confused and angry. Others find solace in friends and family while others internalize their feelings. Some shed tears; some do not. Some join counseling groups while others begin journaling.

Grief is not a “one size fits all” model. Grief is personal. There is no set timeframe or way that you “should” grieve.

In the following pages, you will read about a family who lost their patriarch. The Rev. Paul Spira was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Ind. He passed on December 14, 2022, after a brief illness. He left behind a wife, two children and their spouses, six grandchildren, and many other friends and family. The family grieves and continues to grieve today, but all in their own way.

The following is a perspective of their grief and how they have uniquely processed their loss in the past two years.

CARYL, WIFE

My husband, Paul, was the pastor of our church for 13 years before retiring in 2020. He was 62 when he passed away in the hospital.

In May 2022, our daughter’s family became our main focus as her husband, Ted, left on a 10-month deployment as an Army Chaplain. Keeping their house maintained and helping out with their four children had occupied much of our time.

Our son is a parish pastor (married with two children) and my husband was both a father and pastor-mentor to him. Our son was trying to balance his own parish preparing for Christmas services, while driving back and forth to Fort Wayne when Paul was hospitalized. Losing my husband when we all depended on him for so much was really, really hard.

Threatening winter weather and the height of Christmas season made it a difficult time to plan for a funeral. But we needed closure. Our solution was to hold the funeral service at the church on December 22 for our immediate family and our congregation. In spring, we would have a memorial service after Ted returned from deployment and our extended family and friends could attend. Later, we would inter Paul’s ashes back home in Wisconsin.

After getting through the funeral, my next priority was to create a happy, meaningful Christmas celebration for my daughter and her young kids. Since a winter snowstorm was approaching, we hunkered down at my house for the long weekend and did the best we could. Amazon helped us accomplish the gift part. Christmas Eve service brought tears of joy and emotion, as we missed hearing Paul’s beautiful tenor voice in the choir. But, we were where we needed to be.

What’s next? Our church was holding its first 13-week GriefShare session in January. I couldn’t wait to get started, mainly because it was a dreary January in Fort Wayne, Ind., and I needed a reason to get out of bed. I’m an extrovert. I need to be with people.

I strive to put the best construction on everything and stay positive and upbeat. Losing my husband, my best friend, and daily companion would be the most difficult part of navigating my new life. I’ve known grief from losing grandparents, parents, and friends. But that grief was very different than what I now faced.

I don’t know how I would have survived the winter without GriefShare. I wanted to be with those who understood. While all of our situations and grieving were unique, there’s still the common bond of a life-changing experience of loss. I was familiar with GriefShare through the video “Surviving the Holidays,” which our church viewed during a November Bible class. I attended that class when I was grieving the loss of my dad who died in July at age 91. Little did I know then, I would also lose my husband before the holidays.

A friend gave me a journal to write in, as it helped her when she lost her parents. I’m a checklist kind of person, so the first thing I did was make some lists. Here is how I tackled the next 20 months. With a separate page for each, I wrote down my:

►  Fears & Challenges: Putting these in writing helped me develop a plan on tackling them.

►  Friends for Help or Support: Who to call for advice on house maintenance; needing a friend.

►  Gratitude List: List the things I have instead of looking at what I lost.

►  Ministry Opportunities: How can I help others; what is my purpose now?

►  Accomplishments: An ongoing list to see the progress I’ve made.

I didn’t want to feel abandoned by everyone after time had passed and everyone else got on with their daily routines, so I was ready to contact people who had offered to help or go out to lunch. Admittedly, this is easier for me as an extrovert. I’m always looking to add new friends to this list, developing connections with others, especially those who have lost their spouse. What has helped me is finding individuals who have a shared interest in something that I like to do.

Four months after my husband died, I received a call from Worship Anew as they were looking for a part-time receptionist. I was restless and wondered how I would feel fulfilled and have purpose. God took care of that! I soon discovered how many phone calls came from Worship Anew listeners who had lost their spouse and were updating records and mailing information. I was able to share the words, “I understand how hard that is.” I felt I was in the right place at the right time.

My hardest time is being home alone in the afternoon or on a weekend. That’s when that lonely feeling sets in. I’ve tried to anticipate those times and come up with other places to be and things to do. On the flip-side, I’ve also noticed when I use busyness as an excuse to fill the void, I become exhausted. I’m trying to learn quiet time is not a bad thing.

My new normal means something is different, but I’m not forgetting Paul. I still get hit with waves of “ambush” grief. I try to recognize the triggers and anticipate them. Since music was a big part of our life, unexpectedly hearing certain songs is my most frequent trigger. Early on, I broke down in the grocery store, realizing how different it is to shop for only myself and bypass sale items of Paul’s favorite foods.

Deciding when and how to go through your loved ones possessions is also an ever-moving target. My initial approach was to give things to people for which they would have special meaning. That made it much easier and helped me feel I was preserving Paul’s memory. Now, I only go through the cleaning out process when I’m in the right mood to do it and then it’s OK.

I’ve stayed active in church and have developed a more intentional approach to Bible study. I try to be more sensitive to other peoples’ needs. I’ve always been a hugger. I now appreciate getting hugs just as much as giving them.

I try to not let grief identify me. After year one, I attended another 13-week GriefShare. The videos and workbook were updated, which made it new again. Our group included both previous and new attendees.

I still miss Paul every day, but I can see my progress. Positive thoughts lead to positive thinking. God is good.

LIZZY, DAUGHTER 

Deployment bingo cards are real—anything that can go wrong will.

In April 2022, my husband, Ted, left for a 10-month deployment as a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve. It felt like everything that could go wrong—house, car, sickness—did, and that was before my dad got sick.

I was home alone with four kids under 8 years old, two of whom were still in diapers. I had a part-time job and a four-bedroom house to manage. We hired a neighbor to mow, my beloved sister-in-law to help me clean, and some amazing babysitters stepped in to give me some breathing room each week.

We survived a stomach bug that ran through the whole house in a week, potty training, and the death of my 91-year-old grandpa, Roy, in Wisconsin. Ted missed our youngest son’s first steps and Grandpa’s memorial service. It was a difficult year. In November, my dad, who my kids call their “Boobah,” was hospitalized with a lung infection. On December 14, my dad, the Rev. Paul Jerome Spira, received the salvation promised to Him by his Risen Savior, Jesus Christ.

While this SHOULD have been the worst year of my life, somehow, by the grace of God, it wasn’t. The Church—not just my own congregation, but the Church with a capital-C, surrounded my family in sacrificial ways I never imagined.

When it became clear, that pending a miraculous healing, my dad was not going leave the hospital, my daughter’s godmother hopped on a flight from Atlanta to spend a week with us, pausing her doctoral studies at the end of the semester.

Deaconess Carolyn Brinkley, who coordinates military support at the Fort Wayne Seminary (and who also attended seminary with my dad), sent me a care a package that included a pocket hymnal and a Kantorei Christmas album, which was recorded back in the early 2000s when my dad was a tenor. I could hear his voice when I played it.

I received cards in the mail from complete strangers who had heard through their church’s grapevine of our situation. A friend I haven’t spoken to since high school got her whole Ohio church together to write me cards. Suddenly, my Facebook page was flooded with loving, thoughtful comments from people all over the country who knew my dad and who he impacted in his ministry—more than he could ever have imagined. I knew my dad was a great man and a great pastor, but I had no idea just how far-reaching God permitted his short ministry to be.

I had just started a new job at my kids’ school. Our congregation is one of the association churches, and my dad was a pastor on campus until his retirement. I texted our faculty group chat asking for prayers because those people KNEW my dad. Our new principal, who was just starting her Call to our school, told me to take as much time as I needed. She showed up the day after my dad died with four giant squishmallows for my kids—each one had something special to hug. My daughter’s kindergarten teacher let her sit in her teacher chair. My kids were in a unique environment where it wasn’t just “August’s grandpa” who died but “Pastor Spira”—the faculty and the student body felt the hole themselves.

On Fridays during the school year, my dad would drive from the south side of town 20 minutes north to pick up my two older kids and take them to school to save me one day of getting four kids out the door by 7:25. He jokingly called himself the “Boobah Uber,” which gradually shrunk down to the “Buber.” At about 7:10 on Friday mornings I’d get a text that would simply say “BOTW” — “Buber on the way.” It was a treasured time for the older kids getting their own Boobah time, and I know he enjoyed this small sacrifice, as well.

There was a gentleman at our church named Jerry Branstrator, who had served as an elder and close friend of my father throughout his ministry. From his hospital bed, my dad asked if Jerry would be our new chauffeur. He was an early riser, and my kids knew him from church. He became our Branbuber. He continued taking my kids to school each Friday for the remainder of the school year until Ted got home. He also replaced my broken storm door—a task my dad had intended to do while my husband was deployed but never got to.

We elected not to have Ted come home when my dad died. We imagined it would be too hard to have their Daddy home and then leave again so soon after losing Boobah.

When Ted got home that spring it was such a blessing. I had been told by other military friends that the re-acclimating period would be challenging. I had been doing everything by myself for so long the temptation was either to dump it all on the other parent (“Welcome back! Do some laundry!”) or keep doing everything myself. This time was even harder because, while we had had a few months to get used to the space left from my dad, Ted had to feel it all at once: see my dad’s chair in his living room, his red Mercedes convertible, his tenor in the church choir.

We held a proper memorial service for my dad after Ted returned so he could be a part of it. We lovingly called it “funeral part II.” My brother Ethan, the pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Westfield, Ind., preached at this memorial, and Ted led the graveside committal when we eventually interred my dad’s ashes in Milwaukee, Wis., with the rest of our family.

Now nearly two years later, my kids still often say they miss Boobah. Peter, who was only 18 months when my dad died, still asks when we will see him again. He has heard the answer so many times that it’s become liturgy: “When we get to heaven or when Jesus comes back, whichever comes first.” I try to go out of my way to tell them stories about their Boobah, and they love looking at old pictures on my phone.

I wish I had taken more pictures of my kids with my dad. As a mom I’m always taking pictures of my kids, but I need to be more intentional about getting the adults in their lives in the shots, too.

My relationship with my mom has changed as we work more intentionally to take care of each other. I find myself getting frustrated when others take their loved ones for granted. I started therapy to help process and manage the many stresses in my life.

I will always miss my dad this side of heaven, but I have learned a lot about the grief process and this new club I never wanted to be in. I better understand grief’s challenges and have made unlikely friendships with people I’ve encountered who are also on this journey. And while we will never not be sad, I also am so thankful for the opportunities to witness the faith my dad modeled for me when I do talk about his death.

His sermon mantra was always, “Give ‘em Jesus, baby!” We prayed for an earthly miracle while he was sick, but God gave him the miracle of salvation, which is SO much better.

TED, SON-IN-LAW

I still have the last email that my father-in-law sent to me. Paul was not only my wife’s father, but he was also my mentor as I entered the pastoral office, both as a field work supervisor and then as an ever-present sounding board as I navigated the first few years in the ministry. He was a true father to me and a true friend. He sent the email from his hospital bed, and although he was fighting for his life, he still reached out to offer words of consolation and encouragement during a very challenging time in my ministry, quoting the words of Scripture and pointing me to the promises of Jesus.

His death was heartbreaking and difficult to bear, and the grief was compounded by the fact that I was thousands of miles away, as well as occurring so close to Christmas. And yet Paul, ever the faithful pastor, continued to encourage me with the Word of God even after he had gone to be with his Savior. In his last email, he had directed my attention to Psalm 18 (ESV):

“I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

Paul helped me bear my own grief in the same way that he had helped so many other people during his ministry, by directing my attention to the unfailing love of God and to the hope of eternal life that we have in Jesus Christ.

I eventually printed out his email and taped it to the inside of my Pastoral Care Companion. His proclamation of the Gospel still continues to comfort and inspire me as I strive to carry on the work that he had so faithfully carried out: declaring the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation that can only be found in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

ETHAN, SON

In the 20 some months since my dad's death, well, I'm not sure there's a good way to encapsulate the journey.

I’ve gone through waves of anger. Sometimes it’s been toward God for allowing all of this to happen. Sometimes I’ve directed it toward those well-meaning folks in my life who try but fail to comfort. A few times it’s been centered on the doctors or nurses, as if they somehow missed something (I’m rather ashamed to admit). The biggest struggle is when it comes through the mirror, as I accuse myself for not enjoying the time we had more.

We could walk through this same pattern with my sadness, emptiness, lethargy, as well as the times where hope, contentment, and dare I say, thankfulness have peered in on the story. But you get the point. It’s been a journey.

However, the most significant parts of the journey haven’t been navigating these emotions.

No, the feelings, good or bad, come and go. At times they fade in slowly, and at times, they ambush. They might persist for the day, hijacking everything on my mental agenda, or catch me off guard for only a moment. The cure might be silence or talking, tears or smiles. But the one thing they all have in common is that they do, in fact, go away eventually.

But the hats I wear stay.

Adjusting to life as a son without a father, a father without my kids’ grandfather (or Boobah as they knew him), and a pastor without my mentor and own pastor—these are things that I see as worth sharing.

No matter what journey you’ve been on with grief, similar or vastly different from my own, I know the one area we overlap is that adjustment to the same life that’s forever changed.

For me, the three roles listed above are the areas that I still work through daily.

When my dad died, our daughter was 18 months old, the youngest of his six grandchildren. I can remember when she was a newborn, my parents came to visit, and he asked me, when we were one-on-one, if it felt different having a daughter.

I could tell from his proud smile and voice that it did for him, that there was something so special about having a son and something equally special yet wholly different in having a daughter. But in that moment, she was a newborn (and admittedly, my wife and I are not natural baby people). Compared to her older brother, it felt like pretty much the same newborn routine of eat, sleep, and poop, with a trip to the pediatrician seemingly every other day. I gave an answer somewhere in the middle, acknowledging that it was a little different, but also that I just had a hard time feeling the weight of it since she was so young.

Then, maybe a month or two after his death, our toddler daughter flipped the switch. Overnight, she burst
with unique personality, the verbal explosion, and all the amazing skills and traits that fill up iCloud storage with video after video from proud parents. It was also in this massive leap in development that she chose to become daddy’s girl. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Until recently, the fact I never got to tell him “I get what you meant” was tough. It wasn’t until this past summer, as our daughter turned 3, that the ambush came, and I fully dealt with it. More than 18 months after we sang him off to heaven, I broke down crying and began telling my wife all these details. It wasn’t easy to get out, but something happened once that grief was in the open. I’m not the one who can do descriptive justice to the shift.

What I can say is that since then, every moment when my heart overflows with and for my precious little girl, I feel a connection with my own dad that I never shared during his life. Do I wish that I could tell him I get it now? Of course. But I can’t make that happen. Yet, within that same role in life, I’ve found a deeper connection to my dad despite his absence.

Similarly, as a pastor I treasured that I could rely on my dad’s wisdom and experience as a second career minister. Admittedly, my first four and a half years of ministry that my dad got to witness were marked by many unfortunate twists. In short, I went from a church plant that never got traction to an associate role that within the first 12 months saw the senior pastor, congregation president, and children’s ministry director all leave over deeply unfortunate and different circumstances.

I had no business becoming the sole pastor of a congregation, let alone the skills to help that same congregation through deep hurt and betrayal (while also sifting through my own same feelings). But instead of spending my remaining words telling you the beauty of God’s redeeming plan through the bleakest circumstances—something I suppose is good to hold on to given the context of you reading this—it will suffice to say that my dad was a huge reason (behind the scenes) that our church family stayed in tact and on mission for Jesus.

While no crisis has approached those levels in ministry since, I still found no shortage of reason to call up or text my dad for pastor-to-pastor advice. In fact, the last text exchange we had before his death was him giving me encouragement on a Sunday morning (not an uncommon occurrence).

He ended the text with “Give ‘em Jesus, baby!”

Since his death, the footer on every sermon outline and manuscript I’ve preached has those same words across the page. My wife had them stenciled above my writing desk where I do sermon prep.

Four days after leaving his hospital room for the final time, I was in the pulpit again. My role as pastor continued, even without my mentor. But, it had changed. And while I shed many tears on the sacristy floor between services those first few months, the truth is that change in my same role has been something Jesus has used for His kingdom and glory.

Now, I did mention a third role: Continuing my role as a father without my kids growing up knowing my own father. To be honest, that’s where the journey is still too dark to get into it. To this day, I still struggle with the thought of our kids not hearing his voice from the pulpit, his wisdom in conversation, and feeling the hugs that only come from a proud grandpa. In a way, I’ve made peace with the fact that this will always be a struggle for me, but God may not be done there.

In the end, this is just a snapshot of my journey in grief. It is not the whole picture and hardly begins to fulfill the scope of sorrow and growth, but it is, in part, a reflection of the life God has granted me.

As for your journey, there can be darkness and light, anger, and relief. You may have felt frozen in time as the world moved on, but you stayed in the hospice room. You may have spent every moment in motion to avoid grief catching up to you.

If I have any advice from all this, it would be leaning into what St. Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 (ESV), “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

The promise is not all things will be good or even made good. But through God, all things will work for good. For me, that took close to a full year to feel and believe. Results will vary.

But the promise and love of God in Christ Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. So cast your anxieties on the one who cares for those crushed in spirit and blesses those who mourn.

Lean into Jesus ... baby!