I don’t know what I’ve lost but I’m grieving it just the same.

I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I’d seen video clips of him speaking in various settings and that was my entire exposure to him. If you’d said his name to me, I couldn’t have told you who he was. On the heels of his death, I understand why people are feeling the loss. Now I know his name. Although so tragic, pointless, twisted, evil, etc., – all the words that describe the way his life was taken, I grieve another loss that I can’t completely identify.

I think it would be bandwagon mentality to do a deep dive into his message, his methods, and his politics and I’m not going to do that. From the many, many videos of debate appearances and speaches that have been shared in the past couple of days, I have an idea that there might have been areas where our ideas didn’t completely align but I do confess the same belief in Jesus as Lord, Savior, and only hope for humankind.

It’s the unknown. I am grieving the loss of friends as I knew them. There’s been no broken friendships but there’s definitely been a shift in the naive belief that we were more like-minded. It’s not that we shared the same opinions on some topics because nobody agrees on everything, but it’s how differenly we express them that has actually shocked me. This has been made obvious in the divisive and hateful manner that some have publicly responded. The un-known: I did not know them like I thought I did and that grieves me.

I grieve for the progress that’s been made between family and friends in our commitment to respect boundaries and one another’s opinions. Will it be strained? I don’t know. It is like a pre-grief for those relationships that may not withstand this new division. Grieving for what is unknown.

My greatest wish is that I could just grieve the loss of a brother in Christ and who he was for that reason alone. I wish I could just grieve the brokenness in people that causes them to take a life like they did Charlie Kirk’s. Except I’m grieving for the unknown losses that may still come from this senseless act and divisiveness it has caused. It seems without an end in sight and I won’t know until it appears.

Unknown grief is so open-ended.