APRIL 30 Oh, if I had Orpheus’ voice and poetry with which to move the Dark Maid and her Lord, I’d call you back, dear love, from the world below I’d go down there for you Charon or the grim King’s dog could not prevent me then from carrying you up into the fields of light —EURIPIDES It is a longing we have—to be able to recover the lost, to bring our dear loves back to life It is a fantasy, a myth, as old as there are recorded tales If only we had the right words…if only we could get past the guardians of the dead… Perhaps these longings, these fantasies, are our way of getting used to the idea, by trial and error, that this separation will last as long as our own life lasts Not that there won’t be ways our life will continue to be blessed, to be fed, by the memory and spirit of our loved one, but in terms of physical presence in this life—it is over But perhaps these fantasies also help us keep alive the hope that on the other side of death we will be reunited—that there is a place where our loved one is indeed present, and waits for us Could this recurring image of my search for you support a faith that I may one day find you? MAY Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact —WILLIAM JAMES At first we are so overwhelmed by loss that we seem powerless to anything more than ride along on the turbulent sea of our sorrow and distress There is no use in trying to steer this craft It’s enough just to stay afloat But after a while we begin to get some sense that we do, in fact, have some choice about which way to go This is often an unwelcome discovery It is easier to drift, and people are so sympathetic to our situation when we are sad It is comforting—and less work—to continue to bathe in that sympathy But our life is at a standstill, and we don’t want that to last forever Now we have choices to make, and choice involves risk One of the risks open to us is to act from the assumption that life is, in fact, worth living, and that we can help ourselves to confirm it How? The whole theory of behavior modification is that if we change our behavior, our attitudes will also change We can begin to things again We can make an effort to smile We can reach out to someone else in need I will try acting as though life is worth living, and see what happens! MAY Anyone who tells a story speaks a world into being —MICHAEL WILLIAMS One of the customs we have seen develop at memorial services is to have friends and loved ones share stories about the one who has died—tender moments, jokes, and anecdotes of their life together These bring their own joy and serve to lighten the sadness of loss We have done the same thing in a less formal setting when after the services are over, family and friends gather for refreshment and find themselves lapsing into fond reminiscence—stories from recent times or from long ago I recall returning home from the cemetery after my father’s death and how family and friends assembled to share food and conversation After a while someone said, “Wouldn’t George have enjoyed this party!” and someone else said, “Perhaps he’s enjoying it now.” Surely all of us felt his spirit among us Especially if death has come under particularly hard circumstances, as in the death of a child, friends may think it an act of kindness to refrain from mentioning the child All the more reason to “speak into being” a life that has ended so soon Because a life is over doesn’t mean that that life won’t continue to enrich and bless the living Shared stories are a gift to the teller and to the one who hears MAY It is unwise, because it is untrue, to idealize the dead…We will spend a lot of needed energy keeping that illusion in place and we will not honor the vigor and truth of the [one] who has died…The myth of perfection is hard to maintain We not need it We can give it over—to God, if you will Lay it down Leave it there The [person], as he or she was, was God’s child, acceptable, loved, all right And so are we —MARTHA WHITMORE HICKMAN This impulse to idealize the dead may spring from the sobering realization that for our loved one, any possibility for further human interaction or enhancement of reputation is gone Perhaps the impulse to idealize a loved one—and our relationship to that loved one—comes from our own anxiety about a relationship that had its ups and downs, and now the chances for fixing that are over Of course our loved one had some weaknesses Of course our relationship had its ups and downs Join the human race! What is not helpful is some fretful—and wasted—effort to maintain a rosy gloss over the human triumphs and shortcomings which are part of each and every life To berate myself or my loved one over what is unfixable only deepens the wounds In love and trust I can acknowledge who we were and are to each other, and then move on MAY Look upon each day that comes as a challenge, as a test of courage The pain will come in waves, some days worse than others, for no apparent reason Accept the pain Do not suppress it Never attempt to hide grief from yourself Little by little, just as the deaf, the blind, the handicapped develop with time an extra sense to balance disability, so the bereaved, the widowed, will find new strength, new vision, born of the very pain and loneliness which seem, at first, impossible to master —DAPHNE DU MAURIER When the waves of pain rise highest, we think we will be swept under, that we cannot make it But we can Our work then is to accept the pain, and to wait We can other things while waiting—talk with people, go to the store, read, work in the garden Even as we these things we are aware of the pain, scraping against our heart But if we accept these bad days as part of the course of healing, then better days, better moods, will come The pain will moderate, and we can be confident—proud, even—in our newly acquired strength I will not try to hide or walk around it I will walk through the center of my sorrow and I will emerge—proud and strong ... together These bring their own joy and serve to lighten the sadness of loss We have done the same thing in a less formal setting when after the services are over, family and friends gather for refreshment... long ago I recall returning home from the cemetery after my father’s death and how family and friends assembled to share food and conversation After a while someone said, “Wouldn’t George have... living and your belief will help create the fact —WILLIAM JAMES At first we are so overwhelmed by loss that we seem powerless to anything more than ride along on the turbulent sea of our sorrow