I have grieved the deaths of many people I love. Grieving death, when love for the one who has died is great, hurts. The hurt can be so searing that the griever seeks to shut out her grief: she buries it, hiding it so she doesn't have to face it.
What isn't obvious to the griever is that hiding grief isn't the same as letting it go. Hiding allows the grief to blossom deep within me. It becomes a weed, claiming good soil for itself and choking to death the good that has been cultivated within me.
In my personal effort to grieve a death I've never grieved, I have had to dig deep within myself to grasp at my grief's roots. That grasping has taken the form of many words--as I give voice to the grief, its shape becomes distinct from the now-hardened soil in which it dwells, and I can grasp it with gradually increasing ease.
In what ways will I have to embrace my grief before it releases its hidden grip on me?
What isn't obvious to the griever is that hiding grief isn't the same as letting it go. Hiding allows the grief to blossom deep within me. It becomes a weed, claiming good soil for itself and choking to death the good that has been cultivated within me.
In my personal effort to grieve a death I've never grieved, I have had to dig deep within myself to grasp at my grief's roots. That grasping has taken the form of many words--as I give voice to the grief, its shape becomes distinct from the now-hardened soil in which it dwells, and I can grasp it with gradually increasing ease.
In what ways will I have to embrace my grief before it releases its hidden grip on me?
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