A Poem For Grievers
Your heart is an ever-expanding constellation, a universe of love.
Love holds all hurt, all pain, all joy, all pleasure, all grief.
Love carries us through this thing called life.
Love nourishes our being.
Whether we are lost at sea or flying high, love is what holds us, calls us, heals us.
You are love.
In honor of my loves whose hearts hurt: My spouse and sister (in-law) each lost a loved one on the same day last week, and I was poignantly reminded of how powerful and transformative Grief is…
Sometimes it rips us open and turns everything upside down.
Sometimes it swallows us whole and spits us back out, dazed + confused.
Sometimes it shatters our world + robs us of the peace + joy we came to trust.
Sometimes it facilitates connections we had long since forgotten, or didn’t know we needed.
Sometimes it reminds of us of what’s most important + who we want to be.
It’s a gift, it’s a curse, it’s a lesson, it’s life.
Each love is unique. Each loss is unique. Each grief journey is unique.
We are all different – with different ways, different experiences, different ideas, different needs, different perspectives – we all grieve differently, and each loss manifests in its own way. I have lived through the gut-wrenching fury of sudden, tragic, traumatic loss; the deep, weeping sorrow of holding my best friend’s hand on her deathbed; the consuming anguish of loss of innocence; the mind-boggling melancholy of anticipating loss, and so much more. Each loss was a reflection of a deep love that no longer had an outlet, a receiver, and place to go or flow…
“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” – Jamie Anderson
Here’s to your love, your loss, your life.
