HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 9/24/18
September 24, 2018
Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)
“For we have shared many griefs, but they are translated into pure love and rejoicing when we meet.”
-Mary Sarton
What makes our hearts rise with joy when we meet again people with whom we have shared a sorrow?
We have all heard of the guilt of the survivor – the person who wonders why he or she has been spared when someone else has perished.
Perhaps there’s such a thing, after some time for healing has passed, as the joy of the survivor – not in any gloating having come through severe testing and anguish, one is alive and has been able to modulate that grief into a life that is productive and to a large degree joyful. We have passed through fire and not been destroyed. We have, in fact, been reborn. Because when our loved one died, something in us died, too – some expectation or hope of a future together. And out of the ashes of that destroyed dream we have been lifted into new life.
And when we find someone from whom this is also true – especially if that is someone with whom we have shared grief in the past – why, of course we are filled with love and rejoicing! What else?
In the fellowship of those reborn out of grief, all are sisters and brothers.