Austin's Blog

My dad died thirty years ago. If I’m honest, I don’t think about him very often. The truth is, his absence was felt more deeply than his presence after he left. The other day, I was at the bank when a woman said, “I just knew you were a DeArmond.” She went on to tell me that she and her husband had been good friends with my parents. She knew my dad. In fact, she said her husband still keeps my dad’s golf clubs in the closet—he just can’t bring himself to part with them. I didn’t even know my dad played golf! As I walked out of the bank, I was stunned—not only that someone still remembered him with such warmth after all these years, but also that I learned something new about him three decades after he passed.

In her book What Grieving People Wish You Knew: About What Really Helps (And What Really Hurts), fellow bereaved parent and Bible teacher Nancy Guthrie lists two things grieving people long to hear. She says, “First, grieving people long to hear stories about the person who died and specific things [he] said or did that were meaningful and memorable.” Some of the sweetest gifts given to us after Gabriel passed were when people shared specific ways he touched, enriched, and blessed their lives. He mattered to more people than his family. His little life was (is) deeply infused with purpose, meaning, and dignity.

Mrs. Guthrie continues, “…the second thing people told me they really want people to say to them—and this may be the most powerful way you can bring comfort to someone who is grieving—is to keep saying the name of the person who died.” Gabriel Austin. That was and is his name. It blesses us so much when people bring him up. Guthrie notes, “Oh, to hear that person’s name. It is like salve to an aching soul, music to a heart that has lost its song.” Now that it has been over two years (which is well beyond what our culture allows for grief, which is just plain silly) and we have moved to a new area around people who didn’t know Gabriel personally, only a few closest friends and family members speak Gabe’s name often. But, oh what it does within and for us!

My advice for those who want to comfort the grieving around you is this: share specific stories and memories of those loved ones others have relinquished to the Lord and thoughtfully say their names. This will minister to them in ways you cannot imagine.