grief-and-loss

We have a choice. We can be jaded by what we__e lost, or joyous over what that thing had accomplished while we had it.

Grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away.

To lose someone you love is the very worst thing in the world. It creates an invisible hole that you feel you are falling down and will never end. People you love make the world real and solid and when they suddenly go away forever, nothing feels solid any more.

No one ever told me how sorrow traumatizes your heart, making you think it will never beat exactly the same way again. No one ever told me how grief feels like a wet sock in my mouth. One I__ forced to breathe through, thinking that with each breath I__l come up short and suffocate.

Every wonderful quality "in" someone is waiting to be recognized in all of life's great symphony.

How odd that we spend so much time treating the darkness, and so little time seeking the light. The ego loves to glorify itself by self-analysis, yet we do not get rid of darkness by hitting it with a baseball bat. We only get rid of darkness by turning on the light.

Heaven left a hole in your heart. But it__ up to you to choose if that hole will be filled with pain, anger, and the eternal darkness of loss . . . Or if you will choose to fill it with light and love and have that hole shine out of you like a spotlight into your life, keeping their memory alive . . .{It__ up to you.}

Never say you understand someone's pain if you haven't felt the same, because not only would you sound mocking but also ignorant.

Your grief is something to be admired _ the pain of severance. A scar where something used to be.

One's suffering, one's melancholy is, in itself, really only looked upon as failure or as punishment, as detestable or sinful or socially unacceptable in the eyes of man; but this is not so in the eyes of God: for He is close to the broken-hearted.

Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep with a mixture of angst and gratitude all at the same time. It is finally ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years.

Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown hours, days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep a special cocktail of tears made of angst and gratitude, permeating us with some of the deepest emotions we will ever know. Finally, the release is ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. It also envelopes us in a warm cloak of acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet hours, days, weeks... or years._ Until that day of our own flying away, and beholding our loved one again, in that Beautiful Paradise.

In my gut-wrenching honesty and by acknowledging our big, big God, I found peace.

All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist.

You are no longer responsible. You are no longer allowed to give a shit. Nobody can need you ever again. Go.

Perhaps ... To R.A.L.Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,And I shall see that still the skies are blue,And feel one more I do not live in vain,Although bereft of you.Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet,Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,Though You have passed away.Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,And crimson roses once again be fair,And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,Although You are not there.But though kind Time may many joys renew,There is one greatest joy I shall not knowAgain, because my heart for loss of YouWas broken, long ago.

To ease a grieving heart is the world's greatest pleasure, more so, when the heart is yours.

The opposite of grief is not laughter or happiness or joy. It is love. It is love. It is love.