SEPTEMBER What restraint or limit should there be to grief for one so dear? —HORACE There is no universal time frame for grieving There are as many patterns as there are mourners Much depends on what kind of support system we have and how able we are—often with the help of friends—to face and express our grief But one thing we don’t need to be intimidated by is the implied or expressed opinions of self-appointed monitors who think we are grieving “too long,” or “making too much fuss,” or whatever admonition their words or presence sends us Of course, if we find ourselves totally nonfunctional after months have passed, we may want to seek professional help But we can be sure a wise helper is not going to tell us we are grieving too long or too much On the contrary, if we are stuck on the pathway to recovery, it’s much more likely that we’ve not given ourselves permission to grieve openly and honestly enough So if someone says to us, by word or by action, “You should be over that by now,” we can recall the words from the Talmud: “Judge no one before you have been in his place.” Only from within me can my timetable of grief be discovered SEPTEMBER So I was long ago forgiven I listened to my mother on her deathbed tell the doctor her son was “always a good boy,” having forgiven me so deeply I thought it undercut her memory It was more, it was profounder —WILLIAM GIBSON What are we to with those nagging “if only” feelings that linger—If only I had (or hadn’t) said that If only I had gone to visit more often, or been less of a burden Have they forgiven us, those who have gone on before? We have only our conjectures But if death is an experience of consciousness, then surely it is of enlarged consciousness, of more inclusive vision than we know here “To know all is to forgive all,” the saying goes Perhaps it is in anticipation of that enlarged consciousness, already drawing to itself those who are near death, that our loved ones forgive us with grace and compassion And if they don’t, if the occasion just doesn’t present itself, we can forgive ourselves on their behalf, confident that they would have if they could All is forgiven All is forgiven All is forgiven SEPTEMBER There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love the only survival the only meaning —THORNTON WILDER We know without being told that the bridge is love We know that we have not stopped loving, and that wherever our loved one has gone, our love has followed And surely that love is reciprocated Sometimes it seems almost palpably in the room with us There are people who have had visions of their loved ones standing nearby, heard the sounds of their voices, even felt their intervention at a critical time A man who has written widely in the field of grief tells how he went to get on an airplane and it was as though a force field would not allow him through the door After several attempts he walked back down the stairs and took another plane The first plane subsequently crashed Later, the image of his dead son came to his mind, saying, “Remember the time I wouldn’t let you get on that plane?” What is at work here, we not know We know that love binds us to the dead and they to us—in stretch-able, but not breakable bonds I know that love does not cease with the event of death SEPTEMBER I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within —ALFRED TENNYSON It’s so hard to explain how we feel When friends ask, and we sense that it’s more than a routine polite inquiry, we want to tell them Yet what to say? The same anxiety besets those who try to express condolences How many times have we heard people who’ve come from visiting a grieving friend lament, “I don’t know whether I was any help at all I didn’t know what to say.” We know, since we’ve been on the receiving end of expressions of sympathy, that what is said is not as important as that the person has come to be with us, though it is possible to say “the wrong thing.” We all have our contenders for a prize “wrong thing.” A couple of mine are, “It’s providential,” and, “I’m so sorry your daughter has graduated to the higher consciousness”! But with few exceptions, the expression of love and caring is what matters, not the words In the same way, we who are groping to express our grief don’t need to worry about accuracy or whether we’re getting it all just right I can trust my feelings to help me speak the truth SEPTEMBER Who sees Me in all, And sees all in Me, For him I am not lost, And he is not lost for Me —BHAGAVAD GITA What we are grieved and sometimes terrified by is the sheer fact of loss The loss of the loved one’s presence, the loss of his or her love, the loss of his or her Being How can we be content in a world from which our loved one is forever gone? But the wisdom of this passage from the Bhagavad Gita, and of passages from other sacred Scriptures, is that the creation continues to embrace us and all those whom we love We are still somehow bound together in a giant conspiracy of love, mutual care, and ongoing life As we are not lost to creation, we are not lost to one another This is not to deny the pain of separation and the uncertainty of Not Knowing “Faith,” said the apostle Paul, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What we can be fairly sure of, from our own experience and from the experiences of others, is that there is more going on in the universe than we can detect with our five senses “Now,” Paul also said, “I see in a glass, darkly Then I shall see face to face.” Creation holds us, one by one, and all together ... are grieved and sometimes terrified by is the sheer fact of loss The loss of the loved one’s presence, the loss of his or her love, the loss of his or her Being How can we be content in a world... went to get on an airplane and it was as though a force field would not allow him through the door After several attempts he walked back down the stairs and took another plane The first plane subsequently