VICTORIA BREWSTER & JULIE SAEGER NIERENBERG

When someone whom we love dies, quite naturally we grieve. We have lost the connection to our loved one.

So it seems.

We have lost the place in our lives where we felt safe in the knowledge that our beloved was physically accessible, tangibly present.

We feel lost.

We miss the laughter in times of shared joy; we miss the tears in times of sorrow and times when our hearts connected in compassion. We miss the hugs, shared in every season of life. We miss the celebrations, special meals, surprises and gift giving, especially on Holidays. These were some of the rites of love shared with the one who passed from this life, and their abundance is sorely missed.

The special place in ourselves that the other person co-created now seems empty and incomplete. We identified that place in our own hearts with the personhood of the one now dead; the essence of our relationship’s life seems to have been taken.

When we deeply cherish another life, our own life is forever altered in a full spectrum of sharing: the laughter and ecstasy of blissful moments, the comfort of understanding presence in hard times, the satisfaction of easy companionship in quiet moments, and the pain and ache of eventual separation when the end of life’s journey arrives.

Grief rushes in to fill the yawning chasms in our heart. Grief will run its own course. And that course is not a straight line to a destination. It’s whatever it is, taking us wherever it takes us, whenever it feels like doing so.

Was life together with our beloved one lived in a straight line? No.

Could we predict its ups and downs? No.

Grief will be no different.

Grief will be our new companion, reminding us of moments of pride and joy, of silliness and good humor, and of our heart-rending loss. Grief will prompt us to celebrate all such moments, in life and love, forever after.

Rekindled memories can be new rites of relationship to the one who has died. We can treat those memories caringly, share them wisely, and nurture them lovingly.

These we can do, when we choose to live the love we grieve.

~ Julie