HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 6/18/18

June 18, 2018

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

A faithful friend is the medicine of life.

– The Apocrypha

During the week following the memorial service for our daughter, a friend called me every morning. She was taking her teenage son to basketball camp a half hour’s drive into the country and asked if I would like to ride along. 

I was hesitant. I hadn’t known this friend for very long. I knew she would encourage me to talk. Did I really want to? Would I be so overwrought that I’d embarrass myself? 

It was a risk for me – as it was for her to invite me. But I went – the first day, and then each day throughout the week.

Our rides to camp with her son were mostly quiet. But on the way back we would often stop at the park, get a drink of something, and sit under a tree for a while. I talked, and talked, and cried, and talked. About what? About the feeling of loss, the day’s trivia, the rest of the family, the unfinished business with my daughter.

They were emotional times, of course, filled with articulated pain. But each day, as she dropped me off at my  house, I felt better, able to go on. The pressure was released once more – as steam is released when the lid is lifted from a boiling pot. It was elemental, as simple, as incontrovertible, as that.

Friends can help keep the flow of grief moving. 

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