HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 2/4/19

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“A theme may seem to have been put aside, but it keeps returning – the same thing modulated, somewhat changed in form.”

– Muriel Rukeyser

We find reminders everywhere. Not only the anniversaries – one week, one month, a birthday, one year – the swing of a stranger’s shoulders, the line of a cheekbone, or the tilt of a head. Events we went to together, songs we shared, foods we both liked – or disliked – all trigger our emotions. Our life is strewn with these memory buttons that, when touched, plunged us into sorrow.

We need to give these reminders their due – Yes, I recognize you. Yes, you remind me of my loss. But as we grow stronger we can exercise some choice in the matter and, after an initial tender acknowledgment, put the association with our lost love aside. 

A few months after my daughter’s death, I saw a young woman wearing a plaid jacket similar to one my daughter had owned. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She even had similar coloring, the same long hair. For a moment I thought of going and speaking to her. 

Instead, I closed my eyes and prayed for this young stranger – for her life, whatever it was. I don’t know that it did her any good, but it did me, and I went back to my reading.

I will see the shadows of my grief everywhere. And move on.