NOVEMBER 21 True prayer brings us to the edge of a great mystery where we become inarticulate, where our knowledge fails —PARKER PALMER We would like so much to know Is my loved one in some state of gloriously enhanced being? What is it like? Is he or she aware of me? Shall we know each other again? If I pray, will I know? But the sustaining power of prayer is not to be found in unanswerable questions A few years ago my husband and I went to Alaska One of the highlights of the tour was a bus ride to Denali (Mount McKinley) We’d heard about its towering majesty all our lives We were told it was unlikely we’d be able to see it—the sky was apt to be clouded, visibility low After several hours the bus turned around the base of a hill We saw a line of spectators, shoulder to shoulder, gazing across the Alaskan terrain There was the mountain, miles away—gigantic, white—looming into the sky We joined the other spectators—probably a hundred people There was little conversation We all gazed at the mountain And nothing—no words, no pictures in a travel brochure, no statistics—could have prepared us We were silent In the mystery of prayer—I just have to be there NOVEMBER 22 You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs Still I am king of those —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Grief is a private matter, as well as a public one, affecting as it does all our relationships with friends, family, and our world But it is in our solitude that we are most affected by our loss It is there, in our interplay with memory and our decisions about our energy and time, that we hold in our hands some control over the course of our grief It is a responsibility that sometimes we would as soon not have It is easy to fall into ruts—even ruts of grieving We get used to living in this mood, and it may be more comfortable to stay with it than to make the effort to move away from grief as the center of our lives We may even feel possessive of our grief—as though any attempt, by us or by well-meaning friends, might reduce the importance of our loss, or even of our loved one We are the best judges of when to stay in our grief and when to move on to something else The important thing is to inwardly accept responsibility for the choices we make And to recognize the difference between grieving over the loss of a loved one and continuing to cherish that person Sometimes the best choice is to be in my grief, sometimes not NOVEMBER 23 I not know whether human personality survives physical death I am content to wait and see what comes after death, open to any possibility If it should turn out to be eternal sleep, that too is a gift after a full life —ELIZABETH WATSON This seems small comfort when we are caught up in fresh grief at the loss of a loved one A part of our life has been severed, and we long desperately for that relationship There is no way to know in what terms that may be possible after death But as time passes, we see that, even in the physical absence of the loved one, the relationship does resume, as we sense the person’s influence and presence with us in subtle and pervasive ways As for the possibility that death is eternal sleep…think of the tiredest you have ever been and how inviting sleep was Is that so bad? Especially when you know the essence of who you were will be with your loved ones for the rest of their lives Having no alternative…I will trust life with what I cannot know NOVEMBER 24 …the astonishing or unfortunate thing is that these deprivations bring us the cure at the same time that they give rise to pain Once we have accepted the fact of loss, we understand that the loved one obstructed a whole corner of the possible, pure now as a sky washed by rain…Free, we seek anew, enriched by pain And the perpetual impulse forward always falls back again to gather new strength The fall is brutal, but we set out again —ALBERT CAMUS It is a trade we would never willingly have made, and for a while the “corner of the possible” is nothing but grieving We have no impulse toward new things But when some time has passed and we are able to stand back a bit from our grief and look at our lives, we find some empty space where our involvement with our loved one used to be What to with that time and energy? Maybe it will be subsumed into other things we’re already doing Or maybe it is time to consider something new Perhaps in the transfer of the energy we used to give to our relationship we can see a living memorial to our loved one Let’s make it something worthwhile! My life is entering a new chapter What new thing shall I put into it? NOVEMBER 25 Something within me is waking from long sleep, and I want to live and move again Some zest is returning to me, some immense gratefulness for those who love me, some strong wish to love them also I am full of thanks for life I have not told myself to be thankful I just am so —ALAN PATON It is like returning to health when one has been desperately sick Each day seems a gift—the sun brighter, the air clearer, the taste of food a wonder on the tongue The word “rebirth” is not too strong a word for this return to happiness, to deep contentment with life But it is in some ways a different world into which we are reborn There are things we recognize from the world we knew—the same furniture, the same town, most of the same people—but everything has a new coloration The foundation has tilted, threatened to slide us into the abyss, then righted itself We are the stronger now for having survived the storm Because it seems a new world, time almost slows down, as it did when we were children And our gratitude for the wonders of this world is almost as profound and simple as a child’s—gratitude for a world washed with our tears, as fresh now as a landscape after rain To come through great sorrow is to be reborn into a new world ... death I am content to wait and see what comes after death, open to any possibility If it should turn out to be eternal sleep, that too is a gift after a full life —ELIZABETH WATSON This seems... fresh grief at the loss of a loved one A part of our life has been severed, and we long desperately for that relationship There is no way to know in what terms that may be possible after death But... responsibility for the choices we make And to recognize the difference between grieving over the loss of a loved one and continuing to cherish that person Sometimes the best choice is to be in