I am not saying we should deny or rush through our griefs. Honest grief is a part of our healing in a time of loss. But the turning time comes, when we must move forward, trust God to restore what we have lost. Too often we continue weeping over our past and stay locked in a place where God has already opened the doors to new and better possibilities. Mary turns, not realizing she is turning from despair to hope, from past to future.
Someone is there.
It is Jesus, planter and keeper of the new garden of Eden, of the new creation where every tomb is empty and every door open. When a person can change but refuses to let go of some dysfunctional behavior, you ask them what they are getting out of it, why they are choosing the behavior or circumstance they pretend to despise. Poor Mary, weeping and hopeless, doesn't even see what is all around her, the dawn of a new creation. Or perhaps she chooses not to see it, is afraid of what she sees around her because it is dangerous to her view of the world and her excuses for failure. Maybe she is more comfortable with the way the world is than this new and terrifying possibility that she might be free from her own confining tombs and fully alive for God in the world.