My dad died last week. I had been anticipating it for a while. His body had been slowly failing for years—Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure, and perhaps things we never fully understood. His death wasn’t a shock, but it still shattered something inside me. Because outside of my wife, my best friend died. He was more than a father. He was a steady presence, a quiet protector, a man who helped me steer clear of destructive patterns common to many young men—not by shame or force, but by showing up. He used to lean against my bedroom doorframe at night and just ask what was on my mind. No pressure, no preaching. Just presence. We’d talk about what I was afraid of. What I didn’t understand. What I hoped for. He played catch with me almost every evening the weather allowed. He came to every basketball game and every baseball game. I can still see him sitting in the stands—arms crossed, calm smile on his face—rarely yelling, just there. I never had to wonder if he was proud of me. I knew. He carried himself with a kindness and gentleness that made me feel steady. He didn’t draw attention to himself. He didn’t try to be impressive. But there was a quiet strength in him—a calm that helped anchor me when I needed it. He wasn’t loud or forceful, but he was consistent, present, and kind. He was strong in the ways that mattered most. He lead me as I learned to live into who God made me to be. They say a heart attack took him. But it was years of sickness that prepared me for it. Still, when he went, he went quickly and without pain. For that, I’m deeply grateful. My dad grew up on a small dairy farm. He’d tell stories of a fast-running stream, of rolling hills, of a slingshot mishap that earned him more trouble than he planned. He talked about a legalistic church that pushed him away from the Lord in his youth—and about the wandering that followed. He had a slightly hippie-ish streak, a rebellious edge softened by curiosity and kindness. And then came a near-death experience—one that turned his heart back to God. That moment changed the course of his life. It led to a 55-year marriage with my mom, and a life marked by faithfulness, loyalty, quiet dedication, and deep love—for both creation and the Creator. He also loved children’s literature. He read me E.B. White, Charles Schulz, and Donald Duck comics. He wrote magazine stories, and even a book where I was the main character. He delighted in those stories, not just because they were fun, but because they held beauty, humor, and truth. That love of words was one of the many ways he poured himself into my life. He didn’t just tell stories. He lived one—a good one. And I got to be part of it. The Kindness of Others—and the Limits of Words Since his passing, people have been incredibly kind. Friends and colleagues—many of them counselors, as I’m at a residency training other therapists—have offered their support. They’ve told me they’re sorry. They’ve asked what they can do. They’ve told me they’re praying. They’ve sat beside me in the quiet. It’s all well-meant, and I am deeply thankful. But there’s a strange truth about grief: I don’t need people to be sorry. They haven’t done anything wrong. And honestly, I don’t want to tell the story of what happened another fifty times. I don’t want to narrate his death. I want someone to sit with me in the weight of it. What I need most is something no words can give. I need presence. When my strength falters, I need others to be strong beside me—not to talk me out of my pain, but to stand in it with me. To point me quietly back to Jesus. Not with advice or even encouragement. But with silence, compassion, and presence. And honestly? Many of the people around me have done this well. They didn’t rush in with sermons or platitudes. They didn’t minimize the pain. They didn’t fix it. They stayed. Their kindness taught me what we often forget—even as counselors. What Mourning People Really Need Grief doesn’t ask for answers. It doesn’t require theology. It demands witness—someone to acknowledge the depth of loss and not turn away. And yet, many of us, even those trained to sit with sorrow, still rush in to make things better. We offer clichés. We fumble with tasks. We do something to avoid doing nothing. But here’s the truth: in grief, nothing is often the most powerful thing you can offer. What to Do When Someone Is Mourning Grief is not something to be solved. It’s something to be witnessed, honored, and carried. When someone you love is mourning, your job is not to fix it. It’s to show up and stay. Here’s what that actually looks like: 1. Be Present—Not Performative Don’t try to be profound. Don’t force conversation. Just be present. Sit down. Stay longer than is comfortable. When you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. 2. Offer Simple, Specific Help “Let me know if you need anything” puts the burden back on the grieving. Instead, offer something tangible: “Can I bring you a meal? Would Tuesday work?” “Can I watch the kids for two hours?” “Would a walk together help?” 3. Acknowledge the Loss—Then Let Silence Do the Work You can say “I’m so sorry.” You don’t need to ask for details. Retelling a loved one’s death can retraumatize. Let the grieving person offer what they want, when they want. 4. Avoid Platitudes and Preaching Don’t say “He’s in a better place” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Even quoting Scripture can feel like a dismissal when not invited. The truth of God is not the same as the timing of God. Be sensitive. 5. Be the One Who Remembers Grief doesn’t follow a calendar. The day of the funeral isn’t the end—it’s the beginning. Text them one month later. Say their loved one’s name. Show up again. And again. 6. Pray Without Preaching Yes, pray. But don’t pray the pain away. Sit with it. Welcome God into it. Let your prayer be, “Lord, be near.” Why Presence Matters: Because That’s What Jesus Gave Why does it matter that we offer presence instead of platitudes? Why resist the urge to fill silence with words or offer help only when asked? Because this is exactly how Jesus met those in mourning. His actions weren’t reactive. They were incarnational. Jesus didn’t just perform miracles—He entered sorrow. He saw people in their pain, understood what that pain cost them, and moved toward them with compassion before they even knew what to ask. One of the most powerful examples of this is found in Luke 7, when Jesus encounters a widow whose only son has died. She didn’t plead. She didn’t have to. Her grief was enough. Biblical Reflection: Jesus and the Widow of Nain Luke 7:11–17 – Compassion That Restores a Life Jesus is walking into the small village of Nain when He sees a funeral procession. A widow is burying her only son. She says nothing. She doesn’t even know He’s coming. But Jesus sees her—and everything that her son’s death represents. In first-century Jewish society, widows were some of the most vulnerable people. Without a husband or son, a woman had no legal standing, no source of provision, no social safety net. This woman wasn’t just grieving her child. She was facing total collapse—financial, relational, communal. Darrell Bock notes: “The son’s death meant more than personal grief. It meant social death. It meant poverty, marginalization, and abandonment” (Bock, 1994, p. 213). Jesus doesn’t wait for her to call out. He moves first. He sees her, and Luke tells us He is “moved with compassion” (v. 13). The Greek word used is splagchnizomai—a gut-wrenching, deeply felt compassion. Jesus isn’t just noticing. He is feeling with her. He touches the bier—an unclean act under Jewish law—because grief never kept Him at a distance. He enters it. And when He raises the son, Luke records: “Jesus gave him to his mother” (v. 15). He restores her—not just her son, but her future. R. Kent Hughes writes: “Jesus not only raised her son, He raised her future” (Hughes, 1998, p. 249). This is the model: Jesus saw the depth of loss, and He entered it. He didn’t rush to fix. He didn’t avoid the mess. He stood in it, touched it, and restored from within it. That is our call too. For the Christian Counseling Community This is where we can grow—not just in theory, but in practice. In the presence of real grief, people don’t need advice. They need presence. Not polished words. Not clever insight. Not strategic support. They need us to stay. To sit in sacred silence. To bring Jesus not by explaining Him—but by embodying His nearness. This is how we reflect Him. This is how we become safe places for the mourning. So the next time you sit with someone who has lost what they loved, resist the urge to say more than you should. Stay. And trust that your quiet presence may be the most Christlike thing you ever offer. References (APA 7th Edition) Bock, D. L. (1994). Luke 1:1–9:50 (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament). Baker Academic. Hughes, R. K. (1998). Luke: That You May Know the Truth (Preaching the Word Commentary Series). Crossway.

It’s been ten days since my dad passed. There was no funeral. No obituary. No public eulogy. Just a hot day in late July—a day not unlike the ones he cherished. Since then, memories have begun to rise—unexpected and vivid—as locusts call between trees and the Michigan summer begins its slow shift. He loved this season. Not just August or any one part of it—he loved summer itself. The long light. The warm air. The subtle slowdown. But mostly, he loved summer because it gave him something he longed for all year long: relief. He was a schoolteacher for 28 years—elementary classrooms full of kids, and later, a school system that changed faster than he could keep up with. He went from a time when teachers could correct behavior and maintain order, to a time when the rules left him powerless and discouraged. He carried that weight quietly. But by the time June arrived, his shoulders would start to lower, and by July, he could breathe. Summer gave him room to be himself again. On days when the Tigers were playing, he’d settle into the screened-in porch at the back of our house with a bowl of vanilla ice cream. And sometimes—on days that felt a little extra special—he’d have a bowl of “orange ice,” a Wichterman family tradition passed down from his mother, whom I never met. But somehow, I knew her through the food she left behind. The recipe is simple: water, sugar, orange juice, lemon juice—no rind. We always liked it smooth. Frozen in a Pyrex dish and chipped away with a spoon. The clink of metal against glass still echoes in my memory like a soft bell marking sacred time. The Tigers played. The spoon clinked. The pool water splashed in the background. The porch held him like a secret. He raised four kids on a public-school salary. My mom stayed home and carried much of the daily weight, but when summer came, Dad showed up differently—softer, slower. He painted houses to bring in a little extra money. He worked in the garden. He didn’t swim in the above-ground pool out back, but we did, and he was always close by, content just to be near. And the heat? The heat never bothered him. He welcomed it like a friend. Looking back, I realize he practiced spiritual disciplines without ever naming them: stillness, silence, simplicity, gratitude. Not out of piety or pretense. Just out of posture. He didn’t chase after more. He didn’t hunger for recognition or status. He was content with a reliable Toyota, a working radio, a garden full of zucchini, and a freezer full of orange ice. But he did have dreams. He wanted to see the family home in Switzerland—a Swiss chalet that has stood for generations, nestled in the same village our name came from. He wanted to walk among the redwoods in California’s northern forests—those towering sentinels of silence, those places where you feel small in all the right ways. But he never made it. The trips were expensive. He was satisfied with what he had. And that’s what made him beautiful. But I carry those dreams now like promises. I will go. Not this year. Maybe not next. But someday. I’ll stand in that Swiss village, my feet on the same land as my ancestors, and I’ll whisper to my dad and grandpa, “We made it.” I’ll walk through those redwoods in Northern California, stretch my arms to the sky, and say, “They are as tall as we imagined.” Because mourning isn’t just sadness. It’s movement. It’s memory. It’s the honoring of unfinished hopes with the breath we still have. The day we buried him was late July. I drove my mom to the cemetery. No crowd. No speaker. No ceremony. Just two people in a car watching the quiet end of a long life. He didn’t want a show. He wanted people to go on living. My mom has been hard on herself in recent years—age does that to people. Strength fades, energy changes, and you start questioning whether you were enough. As we sat together, I didn’t want her to cry—I just wanted her to feel the freedom to express what she was feeling. To let it out instead of holding it in. I knew how much she loved him. I knew how heavy the years had been. But her generation didn’t give much space for that kind of expression. They were raised to carry pain quietly and move on quickly. Still, I looked at her and said, “You’ve always been a wonderful mother. You were there. I never felt like you weren’t.” I added, “You were an amazing wife. Dad had his quirks, and you stood by him for 55 years.” She looked out the window and said, “He could be difficult sometimes.” That was all. Not because she didn’t feel more, but because those feelings had been folded into a thousand quiet sacrifices across the decades. And maybe that simple sentence was all she had words for. That’s how we mourned that day: in honesty, in presence, in silence. Afterward, I dropped my mom off. I lingered at my childhood home for a short time, not quite ready to leave. On the drive home, I called my oldest sister to update her on the quiet moment we had shared. I remembered. I cried. I thanked God for the time I had with him. Not because it was enough—it never is—but because it was good. And because gratitude is one of the ways we hold on to what we can no longer touch. If You’re Mourning Quietly Too If your goodbye came without a service, without a headline—here are some ways to walk through grief that lives in the background: Let the memories rise naturally. Don’t force them. Let the citrus, the porch, the baseball game bring them. Repeat their rituals. Make the orange ice. Sit where they sat. Listen to what they loved. Don’t rush your grief. Whether it comes in tears or silence, let it come in its own time. Speak the unsaid. Say what they never heard. Say what you needed to say. Say it still. Live the dream they couldn’t. Not as a burden. But as an act of honor. Complete it with joy. Let the ordinary become sacred. A quiet porch. A clink of a spoon. A bowl of frozen sweetness. These things hold holy weight. My dad didn’t want a performance. He didn’t need applause. He just wanted peace. And in the end, he taught us how to find it—in simple joys, in sacred seasons, and in the call of locusts between the trees. A Quiet Life: Scripture and Reflection “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands…” —1 Thessalonians 4:11, NIV In a culture where ambition is often equated with visibility, Paul’s instruction to the Thessalonians reorients our view of what it means to live well. The verse calls not for obscurity, but for rootedness—for a life grounded in steady, faithful presence. As the Preaching the Word Commentary explains, Paul dignifies the simplicity of ordinary work and daily life, honoring it as a reflection of peace with God. The Expository Commentary echoes this, noting that Paul urges believers toward contentment and spiritual maturity rather than restlessness or disruption. And as Calvin wrote, “A tranquil mind is the mother of wisdom.” My dad lived this verse without preaching it. He worked with his hands. He didn’t seek applause. He knew how to be still. And by his quiet life, he passed down a kind of wisdom I’m still uncovering. Final Words The world tells us to move on quickly, to sanitize our grief, to get back to productivity. But we are not machines. We are image-bearers, shaped by loss and love alike. If you're mourning—loudly or silently—take your time. Let the memories wash over you like heat in late July. Let the dreams remain alive in you. Let the porch hold your body the way it held his. And know that God meets us not just in victory, but in quiet, faithful presence. Grief may visit in silence, but it never returns void. It teaches, it softens, it prepares us to live more deeply, love more patiently, and remember more intentionally. Like orange ice on a hot day, it doesn't erase the heat. But it gives you something sweet to hold.