HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 6/24/19

June 24, 2019

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“Pain-has an Element of Blank-
It cannot recollect
When it began-or if there were
A time when it was not-” 

– Emily Dickinson

When we are suffering intense grief, it is almost hard to remember what it felt like to be happy. Particularly when loss comes suddenly, it is as though we have been shunted into a different world where nothing has the same meaning it had before. In fact, we are startled, offended almost, that people seem to be conducting business as usual.

I recall going to the dentist soon after my daughter’s death and hearing almost with incredulity the banal chit-chat of people in the waiting room. How could they? Didn’t they know?

Of course, we will not always be at this point of Altered Reality. We will, in time, incorporate our loss into our lives so that it is part of the daily background of living. Though it is sad, it doesn’t shock and startle us with each new day. 

And maybe our initial inability to remember how it felt to be happy was for the good after all – the contract would have been too painful. Besides, we needed to give our attention to what was going on where we were.

I will be present to the moment as each day unfolds.

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