HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 10/30/17

October 30, 2017

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.”

-Helen Keller

“Remember how it is when you meet someone who has had a loss similar to yours? The instant bond, the acknowledgment in the other’s face – I know you. I know what you’re going through. And your own feeling, which is almost a physical lightening of the burden, that here is someone who understands.

You will meet such kindred souls, perhaps more often than you expect. People will refer them to you – “I think it would be helpful if you talked with ________.” You will probably run into fellow mourners in groups to which you belong, as though by some principle of natural selection you gravitate toward one another.

And there will be fellow sufferers whom you may never meet but whose sorrow you may read about or hear of. Your heart will go out to them, and the well of human compassion on which we all draw will be deepened.

In my mind I reach out to fellow sufferers – met and unmet – and feel our support for one another.”

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