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I attended an All Saints service a few years ago in which a young Episcopal priest spoke of the loss of his grandmother. He had grown up with his grandmother and she had passed away many years prior to this service. His words concerning grief and mourning were very moving and profound to me. I'd like to share them with you.
He said that the loss of a loved one created in our souls a void. He said to imagine what it would be like to come home one day and find a huge hole in the middle of your floor. You'd have to learn how to walk around it. He said that the grief that comes with losing a loved one feels a lot like a huge hole in your soul. You miss your loved one so much that the pain seems unbearable. You fall into that hole time and time again and feel so lost and lonely without your loved one that you think you just can't live anymore. He let us know that that was okay. It was natural. It was healthy.
Eventually, he said, you learn to walk around the hole. It's still there, still a big ugly void, but you learn how to avoid it. This is part of the healing process. He stressed the fact that the hole would ALWAYS be there. The feeling of loss from that loved one will never go away. We just get better at walking around the hole. Every now and then we may even forget and fall in again for a time.
It was helpful to me to visualize grief in this way. I lost my very best friend in the whole world last August, my cat, Katie. She had kidney disease and passed away at home. I still think about her every single day. She was the only cat I've ever known who would come when I called her and I know she loved me as much as I loved her. I've gotten used to walking around the hole in my heart that came when she left me, but it is still there and I'm glad that it is still there.
The unbearable pain we feel when confronted with a loss can be overwhelming. But it is a pain that will fade. It will never go away, but it will become bearable and there should be no guilt associated with learning to cope and continue with our lives without our loved one. After all, we are on this earth for such a brief moment and will be reunited with our loved ones in the blink of a cosmic eye.
I like to think that my Katie met up with my great-grandmonther in heaven and is keeping her lap warm during "Price Is Right" and eating up any cheese that happens to drop while she's making her famous maccaroni & cheese.
He said that the loss of a loved one created in our souls a void. He said to imagine what it would be like to come home one day and find a huge hole in the middle of your floor. You'd have to learn how to walk around it. He said that the grief that comes with losing a loved one feels a lot like a huge hole in your soul. You miss your loved one so much that the pain seems unbearable. You fall into that hole time and time again and feel so lost and lonely without your loved one that you think you just can't live anymore. He let us know that that was okay. It was natural. It was healthy.
Eventually, he said, you learn to walk around the hole. It's still there, still a big ugly void, but you learn how to avoid it. This is part of the healing process. He stressed the fact that the hole would ALWAYS be there. The feeling of loss from that loved one will never go away. We just get better at walking around the hole. Every now and then we may even forget and fall in again for a time.
It was helpful to me to visualize grief in this way. I lost my very best friend in the whole world last August, my cat, Katie. She had kidney disease and passed away at home. I still think about her every single day. She was the only cat I've ever known who would come when I called her and I know she loved me as much as I loved her. I've gotten used to walking around the hole in my heart that came when she left me, but it is still there and I'm glad that it is still there.
The unbearable pain we feel when confronted with a loss can be overwhelming. But it is a pain that will fade. It will never go away, but it will become bearable and there should be no guilt associated with learning to cope and continue with our lives without our loved one. After all, we are on this earth for such a brief moment and will be reunited with our loved ones in the blink of a cosmic eye.
I like to think that my Katie met up with my great-grandmonther in heaven and is keeping her lap warm during "Price Is Right" and eating up any cheese that happens to drop while she's making her famous maccaroni & cheese.
