Jim Gash: Together in grief

A year ago today—on October 17, 2023—grief assailed the Pepperdine family in an overwhelming way.

When we lost Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams—four precious lives, taken suddenly and tragically as pedestrians killed by a reckless motorist —grief took on profound weight for us. These were four bright, beloved young women whose futures we imagined stretching long before them. The unimaginable circumstances of their loss and the immense impact it made on our extended Malibu community thrust every member of that community into some of the darkest days in recent memory. The absence they leave behind is staggering. And one year later, that pain has not left us.

Over the course of the year, as I have mourned with the families and the friends who loved these four young women, I have grappled to make some sense—any sense—of such a tragedy. I know from those interactions that our entire community continues to wrestle with that same difficulty. We continue holding these four families close, knowing this anniversary brings with it a heavy, relentless reminder of their pain.

As I look beyond campus to the world around us, I'm reminded that we are not alone in our grief. The global landscape is marred by loss—from the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton to ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to the countless families worldwide who suffer from chronic illness. Our grief, while unique, is part of a larger story of human suffering, and it binds us to others walking through tragedy.

I know that, especially in the Christian world, we can tend to avoid the difficulty of truly grappling with pain and suffering. We can be tempted to think that we need to sweep difficult emotions under the rug or put on a happy face. We can be tempted to think that Christian hope leaves no place for mourning.But this is not the true, Christian response to loss. And it is not the response I have seen from our community. Instead, in the days since the tragedy, I have been honored to watch our faculty, staff, and students walk with each other and with these families through the depths of this inconsolable grief while tethered to our faith.

Our community has learned the difficult truth that grieving often does not result in making of tragedy—of neat resolutions or quick fixes; it more often involves leaning on each other, and especially upon our gracious and present God, as we walk through the ongoing process of mourning.

The past year, we've experienced firsthand how grief brings to the surface countless questions for which there are no easy answers. The psalmist in Psalm 77 speaks for many of us when he asks:

"Has [the Lord's] love vanished?"

"Has his promise failed?"

"Has God forgotten to be merciful?"

These are very real questions that come out of very raw pain. Even though we may know intellectually that God is near, our circumstances can make His presence feel distant and elusive. It has been inspiring to witness our community walk through these questions in a way that acknowledges their weight, yet resists being overcome by it.

After receiving the devastating news last October, I wrote a letter to the Pepperdine family centering on the reminder, "You are not alone." It has been encouraging beyond expression how thoroughly our community has lived out that ideal in the days since. We have acknowledged the abiding pain we are all feeling. We have grieved together. We have accepted the invitation to remember who God is and to give Him our burdens of grief even when He feels distant.

In all this, we do find hope—not in a superficial way that erases pain, but in the deeper truth that we serve a God who entered into our suffering. Jesus did not shy away from human grief. He shared in it; he took it upon Himself. As the prophet Isaiah tells us, He was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief."

And it is only through this shared suffering that we can receive the ultimate joy of redemption. It is because of His grieving with us that "we do not grieve as people who have no hope." It is through His weeping alongside us that He can promise to one day wipe away every tear from our eyes.

I have always found the story of Lazarus particularly moving. Upon hearing of the death of his friend Lazarus, Jesus did not immediately jump to the resolution he knew was coming—that He would raise Lazarus from the dead. He did not tell his friends to cheer up, or to toughen up, or ask why they didn't have more faith. Instead, He wept alongside his friends. He entered into their suffering. He grieved together with them.

That is where we are today as a Pepperdine family. We are still grieving. Our hearts remain heavy. We are still weeping with the families of Niamh, Peyton, Asha, and Deslyn, and we are weeping with one another.

But in our grieving, we are discovering what it is that keeps grief from overcoming us. The prophet Isaiah says "surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... and by his wounds we are healed." We do not walk through life and loss alone. We have the presence of a living God who walks with us and comforts us—and it is His comfort that gives us the strength to comfort one another.

Today, we honor, remember, and mourn the four young women who meant so much to our community, and we walk forward in grief and in hope, together.

Jim Gash is the president of Pepperdine University