OCTOBER 12 Incredibly, I’ve gone all afternoon without thinking of her —HOYT HICKMAN We thought we would never be able to it—move back into the active stream of the life we had known before this loss occurred And, of course, it’s not the same life Not only is the cast of characters diminished by one, but we, having been affected by this loss, are not the same person we were And, depending on how close other key people in our life were to the one who is gone, perhaps neither are they But one day we realize we are beginning to come into our new life—where we are not always weighted down by grief We may find ourselves enjoying a dish of ice cream or a cup of hot tea without reference to what is missing from our lives We may watch a movie or a play without the complication of being a viewer for whom everything is colored by grief We may finish a conversation with a friend and realize that not once did our loss seem to lie like an undertow beneath that exchange Then we know we have moved onto a new path in our healing journey I know I cannot force it, but, bit by bit, recovery will come OCTOBER 13 Come to me, come to me, O my God; Come to me everywhere! Let the trees mean thee, and the grassy sod, And the water and the air! —GEORGE MACDONALD When we have lost a loved one, we are hungry for assurance that God exists and holds the world in tender care We need to know that life itself is not rejecting us, turning from our pain Our antennae are out for signals, for signs and wonders—any hint that life cares for us, that God cares for us, that we are not alone We see significance in everything A bird hovers by our window and seems to be singing to us We run into someone we hadn’t seen for a long time who, upon hearing of our loss, tells a wonderfully reassuring story of life after death We go to church or synagogue and the service seems especially attuned to our need just then How much of this is our projection, how much the synergy of benign forces beyond our understanding, we don’t know And maybe we don’t need to know Whatever its origin, something is coming to our aid Perhaps God in many forms Sometimes I have a sense that life is calling my name, bringing me comfort OCTOBER 14 To read the works of others who have gone through grief is another way of keeping the process going, and of finding another understanding friend When a writer describes for me how I am feeling, she or he becomes my friend; I am not alone Somehow that person has achieved some peace with the pain, enough to write it down Maybe I, too, will find my way through this —MARTHA WHITMORE HICKMAN In the crisis of losing a loved one, as in most other crises in life, we can be helped most by those who have been through the same thing In addition to friends who may have had experiences like ours, and to community support groups for grievers, don’t overlook libraries and bookstores! There are books tailored to particular types of loss—of a parent, a spouse, a child Some tell personal stories; some are more from the point of view of a counselor, offering clinical analysis and help Some are from a particular religious or philosophical point of view In a bookstore or library we can browse until we find something that speaks to us Variety isn’t what matters here It’s like good friends—one or two may be all we need The discovery of the right book can bring hope and wisdom, be a companion in the dark watches of the night OCTOBER 15 Because of her, he had learned to look for the birds—the darting flight of wild canaries (yellow sun on yellow wings), the chesty preening of redbirds and bluebirds, the blackbird with the red-tipped wings like startling epaulets —TERRY KAY How much we have learned from them—those dear ones we have lost! And how their gifts stay with us The sharp vignettes surface from our memory again and again Scenes we scarcely gave a second thought to when our loved one was alive emerge as scenes from a family album—doubly cherished now that our loved one is gone I see my mother cutting long, thin triangles from a brightly colored page from a magazine, spreading them with flour paste and, starting at the wide end, rolling these strips around a needle—another bead for the necklaces she was making for her two young daughters I’ve never seen this craft described (some kind of forerunner of papier-mâché, I suppose) and I have no idea what became of the necklaces It was decades ago, and I don’t know that I thought of it again while she was alive But I think of it now with warmth and gratitude—my sister and I and our mother, gathered around the table in this project of scissors and paste and those wondrous beads! Our loved ones live on in the vivid memories of the things they taught us OCTOBER 16 Excessive mourning is nonproductive, someone remarks A social inconvenience, downright inconsiderate in the public eye Life, according to my Orientalist friend, is a passage, a corridor, and she bids me to rid myself of morbid brooding Bullshit! I’m angry —TOBY TALBOT No one wants to be inconsiderate of others, but right now it’s more important that we not be inconsiderate of ourselves We have been wounded We need care We need care from others, and we need care from ourselves No one but we ourselves can know which is the best way to express our grief And if we’re angry—and it’s legitimate to be angry at this blow that has been dealt us—we need to express our anger So if we make other people uncomfortable, or if we seem to be “more upset” than they think we should be—that’s their problem It’s time for us to move on to other friends who are more understanding I will not be intimidated by the opinions of others on how I should be feeling I am inside my head and heart, and I know ... run into someone we hadn’t seen for a long time who, upon hearing of our loss, tells a wonderfully reassuring story of life after death We go to church or synagogue and the service seems especially... grievers, don’t overlook libraries and bookstores! There are books tailored to particular types of loss? ??of a parent, a spouse, a child Some tell personal stories; some are more from the point of