Death
Death is an unbearable shock. It can hurt us to the very core of our being.
It can steal a parent; child; partner; lover; family member; dear friend at any time it chooses, often without warning.
It can visit someone whom we only know from a distance or someone we don’t know at all. The news is still received with sadness.
We cannot come to terms with it; question every aspect of it; curse it; get angry with it. We cannot hold back the tears; cannot eat or sleep properly. It seems there will never be a time when we can get away from the loss and pain it has inflicted upon us.
No-one seems to know exactly the right words to say at this time. We hear platitudes, kindly meant, but which do nothing to ease the numbness we feel. We go over memories time and time again which reduce us to tears; we cannot listen to music which we shared with our loved one without it tugging at our hearts and the tears flow again.
Why are others going about their business? Why are they laughing? Don’t they know or understand? It is said that ‘Time is a great healer’ but at this time, for us it isn’t. How can it be? This wound has cut deep and surely cannot heal.
But then, with the passing of time, the process of recovery begins. It may be short or long. Sadly, for some it never comes completely, if ever.
Most of us have close family and friends who will catch us and comfort us when we stumble and fall along the way. There are others who don’t have such comfort from anywhere. When they fall, they must try and pick themselves up and carry on the best they can.
Hopefully, with the dawning of each day the rawness of loss is eased by those memories, once so painful to recall, and which we can more comfortably visit; gradually bringing back recollections of the good times and, yes, sometimes the not so good times. They connect us to our loved one in a way which we can never explain nor fully understand.
Perhaps it is that capacity for love which is inside us all that helps us along the path of acceptance; that deep love which gives us strength but which we cannot adequately put into words. The hand of the Divine, in whatever form it takes for you, will hold you and gently lead you back.
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