HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 10/16/17

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone, ‘Happy the heart that sighed for such a one!’”

–Samuel Daniel

“If we didn’t love them, we wouldn’t care so much.

At first the grief is so consuming, it may be hard to look ahead and foresee rejoicing – that we have been privileged to share life with this person.

Even when death is premature and the circumstances are terrible, we can know that, down the road, our gratitude for the life of the person will far outstrip the terrible grief that at first seems to take up the whole landscape of our lives. A friend whose son committed suicide told me that an important milestone in her healing was the making of two lists: one, of the bad things about her experience with this son; and another, of the good things. Needless to say, the list of good things was by far the longer list.

It will take time before the scale, tipped initially with the primary weight of grief, rebalances itself and our joy in the person’s life again takes preeminence. But if the relationship has been one of joy and mutual appreciation, this will happen.

I am grateful, from the bottom of my heart, that I have shared the life of my loved one. And I trust that someday my happiness, as I remember our life together, will far outweigh the grief I feel now.”