“Grief can destroy you –or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn’t allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it’s over and you’re alone, you begin to see that it wasn’t just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can’t get off your knees for a long time, you’re driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
Dean Koontz, Odd Hours
This passage always chokes me up a little. And while it exists as a reference to the loss of a romantic partner, the sentiment applies to any relationship in your life you have cherished and lost. If you have loved in any capacity, this wisdom holds true: to dwell on your grief is to neglect the love you that still resides in your heart.
Of course, the paradox of grief is that it’s a heavy burden that is next to impossible to put down. Grief never truly leaves us; once grief settles in our hearts, it has the ability to color our happiest memories with sadness. When we are of a healthy frame of mind sadness mingles with the happy memory, transmuting it into something golden and precious. While in the wrong frame of mind, sadness corrodes everything about the thing we have lost.
Acknowledge your pain. But know when to put it away. And if you need to seek help to do so, then please ask for it.
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