Healing after loss daily meditations phần 66

NOVEMBER 11 …and it was gray, and grayer the deeper he went What if it was deeper than he had figured? But soon the light changed, the muck brightened, and he was headed out, towards clear sky and sun again He said that was the best sight in the world: the world —JOSEPHINE HUMPHRIES Deeper and deeper we burrow into our grief Desolations pile on one another We wonder if we shall ever see anything on the horizon but this gloom and sadness Then one day, in some moment of quiet reflection, we find ourselves Thinking of Something Else! Is it possible? We will move back and forth many times—back into the dark woods and forward again into light After a while we will realize it is all one world, that feelings of joy and sadness enrich each other—as a person who has been mortally ill has a new appreciation for the beauty of starlight, the taste of orange juice, the caress of love Is it all right? Is it being disloyal to our lost loved one—to savor our life afresh? Are we in danger of forgetting? Not to worry We would as soon forget to breathe I will be open to the possibility of joy in my life, and I will not be afraid NOVEMBER 12 Give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness —ISAIAH 61:3 The Prophet is anticipating the good news of God’s deliverance Of what does deliverance consist for us? Not that the situation will change and our loved one be restored to us We know better than to hope for that But maybe to be delivered from some of this pain, so that our existence is no longer shadowed by our loss, and the beauty of the world is no longer just a reminder that the one we shared it with is gone From that—yes—we can hope to be delivered We have but to look around us and see the many others who have suffered losses They are legion They walk the streets with us, get on and off the bus, shop with us in the stores They have survived And some of them have been made stronger and are now pillars of support for others When we shall have been delivered from our deepest grief—by the help of friends, by faith, by time, by work to which we can return with a heightened sensibility—then we, too, shall experience “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,” and be a blessing to those who need us I know that I shall walk out into the sunshine again NOVEMBER 13 It is important, when dealing with all aspects of grief, to keep the process moving The temptation is to freeze, to stay perpetually recoiled against so terrible a blow —MARTHA WHITMORE HICKMAN It is almost a physical sensation, especially if death has come suddenly and unexpectedly—almost a sense of having the wind knocked out of you And even if death has been a long time in coming, there is an impulse to dig in one’s feet at the moment of death It is our last experience of our loved one and we want to hold on, keep the immediacy of that memory from growing dim That’s all right for a while But the danger is that we will get stuck there All of us have known or heard of people who keep a room just as it was while the loved one was alive—even to the point of slippers resting beside a favorite chair and clothes hanging in the closet This does not honor the truth—either of our own lives or that of our loved one Wherever he or she is, it is certainly not “back there.” Bit by bit, we need to loosen our hold on a past we cannot keep and get on with the life we have As I move on into my new life, can I think of my loved one as doing the same? NOVEMBER 14 Even in the dark you have the power to whistle —FREDERICK BUECHNER It seems a simple thing—to muster the will and energy to whistle But one of the major components of grief is that it’s hard to lift one’s voice—or whistle—in song It’s also hard to anything that requires us to take the initiative We tend to be reactive, not to initiate To claim our power at all is a victory, and to something associated with a carefree state of mind—like whistling—is a major victory It may signify a great change in the range of moods we’re willing to experience We are ready to give up the image of ourselves as the dolorous and wounded and, for this moment anyway, rejoin the active stream of human life So if we’re able to whistle—or anything that seems to distance us from our consuming burden of grief—it’s not only a song, it’s a milestone We’re on the move, laying down our encompassing cloak of I Am the Wounded One, and moving out It’s a triumph It’s something to whistle about! Bit by bit, I am walking out of the dark NOVEMBER 15 Guests of my life, You came in the early dawn, and you in the night Your name was uttered by the Spring flowers and yours by the showers of rain You brought the harp into my house and you brought the lamp After you had taken your leave I found God’s foot-prints on my floor —RABINDRANATH TAGORE It is so easy to think we have some ultimate claim on those we love, rather than that we have been privileged to share one another’s lives for a time—they with us, and we with them We know that we pass on our genes to our descendants, as our parents have passed theirs on to us We orally pass on our memories and leave behind times we’ve shared with those we love But always there is some essence which is at its heart a mystery And where it came from and where it goes, we don’t know But perhaps there is a trace of the divine in each of us, which comes from its home in God, and returns to that home Before the mystery of life I am silent, and glad  ... maybe to be delivered from some of this pain, so that our existence is no longer shadowed by our loss, and the beauty of the world is no longer just a reminder that the one we shared it with is... can hope to be delivered We have but to look around us and see the many others who have suffered losses They are legion They walk the streets with us, get on and off the bus, shop with us in the... flowers and yours by the showers of rain You brought the harp into my house and you brought the lamp After you had taken your leave I found God’s foot-prints on my floor —RABINDRANATH TAGORE It is