If We...
If we cannot come into the world alone;
If we cannot go through life alone;
Do you think we will be alone when
The time comes to leave this life?
If we cannot be deserted even
when not seen;
If we cannot go unnoticed wherever we are;
Do you think there is not life everlasting?
If we cannot stop a thought once
conceived;
If we cannot circumvent each feeling;
Do you think our spirit does not exist?
If we can accept the road before
us;
If we think ad therefore we are;
Do you think onward and upward is not our path?
If we can acknowledge, “To
think is to create,”
Let us move only in the direction
That stimulates growth of our spirit.
If we...
––Brion K. Hanks
When The Rose Fades
www..globalvelocity.net
Some Days
Some Days...
I work on the strength and the armour to protect myself.
Some Days...
I work on the bridge to continue my journey.
– –TCF—York, PA
Whisper and Shout
Today, I thought of you at home,
sad, on this day,
missing your loved one.
I feel your need to speak to your loved one again,
to hold him or her close . . .
and whisper in an ear,
'I love you' over and over again.
But you can still whisper that sentence.
You can shout it to the world–right now–
or just to yourself;
for I'm sure your loved one will hear you,
and whisper back in a faint breeze
or shout loud on high winds,
'I, too, love you. I, too, love you.'
–––Patricia Spork
[Patricia Spork lost her 19–year–old son to
depression
and suicide on 12/26/00. She is founder of IVY VINE
(www.ivyvine.org) and author of SON FOR ALL
SEASONS, available as a free PDF download at
http://www.writersgraphicimage.com/ebooks.html ]
I am standing upon
the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until
at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and
sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says:
"There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all.
Her diminished size is in me,
not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There,
she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other
voices ready to take up the glad shout:
"Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
 |
– –Henry
Scott Holland |
An Angel Walked
An angel walked with me today.
I looked up , and there before me,
I saw her wings
Stretched our gloriously across the sky
Her wings enfolded me with
Unconditional love and warmth
And hope for all that was
And all that is and all this is to be.
An angel walked with me today,
And my path was a little easier,
My steps a little lighter,
And my heart a little kinder.
––A.D. Williams
East Elmhurst, NY
Bereavement, A Magazine of Hope and Healing
|
One February
February is the month of observing
a poor–sighted groundhog’s behavior and deducing predictions
from it, the month of pasting together lacy doilies and red hearts
and writing puns for our loved ones, and the month of spartan living
when lent begins. And for us Texans, if the weather has not been ugly
yet, February is the month that will see the last full blast of winter
just when we have congratulating ourselves on escaping ice and snow
all year. All these things rolled into the shortest month of the year.
Doesn’t seem fair, does it?
But then, life is not fair,
is it?
Life seems to be a kind of neutral
ground, while we humans have a built–in sense of fairness that
nothing else in nature chooses to recognize. The sun shines brightly
on the just and unjust: that is not fair. The unjust ought to be plagued
by having to walk around under a little black cloud. They do not deserve
sunshine in their lives. Besides, those little black clouds would
readily identify the unjust so that just persons could not be deceived.
Accidents and disease should happen only to those under the little
black clouds, too.
But life, impartial and unbound by our inward concepts of justice,
steadily moves through time, flowing from generation to generation,
stopping for no one. Our own sense of justice or fairness resembles
icing on a cake. We try to make our lifecake pretty, frost it with
our ideas of fairness, but we do not have any real influence on the
texture of the cake itself. We can add to or detract from the overall
taste, but we do not affect the cake itself.
Since we must learn to accept
the unfairness of the tragedies we sustain, we must also learn to
dump our bitterness and our rage and our hopelessness before it ruins
the taste of life– –our cake– –for everyone else
in our family. A positive attitude makes the best icing for our lifecake.
If we can learn to flavor our icing with joyous memories and helping
others, we can make even a bland cake palatable.
––Shirley Cognard Ottman
The Slender Thread
Short Excert from:
A Time To Grieve by Carol Staudacher
Surviving a death seems to wipe
out many of our capabilities ; one of them is making decisions. A
widower complained that deciding whether to make decaffeinated or
regular coffee in the morning took him twenty minutes. Other survivors
have been disturbed because their impaired decision making ability
caused them difficulties at work. Being unable to make decisions is
a natural aspect of the grieving process. As survivors, we are dealing
with an underlying and constant distraction of the greatest magnitude.
We easily lose our train of thought, or fail to remember something
we have just been told. For that reason it is extremely important
for us not to make any major decisions or changes in our lives when
we are grieving. All decisions of importance should be put on hold
until at least a year after the death.
~I will not make any major decisions for the first year, unless doing
so is absolutely unavoidable. And I will not worry about my inability
to make lesser decisions. It may take me longer than I expect, but
it is all part of the grieving process. My uncertainty and instability
are only temporary.
A Love Song
The mention of my child’s name
May bring tears to my eyes,
But it never fails to bring
Music to my ears.
If you really are my friend,
Please don’t keep me
From hearing the beautiful music.
It soothes my broken heart.
And fills my soul with love.
– –Nancy Williams
A Solitary Journey
Grief is a solitary journey. No one but you knows how great the hurt
is. No one but you can know the gaping hole left in your life when someone
you know has died. And no one but you can mourn the silence that was
once filled with laughter and song. It is the nature of love and of
death to touch every person in a totally unique way. Comfort comes from
knowing that people have made the same journey. And solace comes from
understanding how others have learned to sing again.
– –Helen Steiner Rice
A fellowship for
bereaved parents You need not walk alone!
|
