balanced between grief and gratitude

                                   

Deep grief can literally give you whiplash !

First you try to take in all that is lost . . .

            the dreams that will never be,

            the deafening absence,

            the precious reminders of the presence of this child 
                    that literally rip a hole in your heart each time you see them

and, at the same time, you try to take in all the amazing gratitude you feel . . . ,

            for the unforgettable moments you have been given,

            for the vivid memories that replay like a beloved movie in your mind, and

            for the amazing gift of a love as immense as this ?   

Grief is so confusing !  It is packed with both of these heavy opposites.   So, we careen from one to the other like a marble in a pinball machine – bouncing first one way then another.  It is enough to make you crazy !   It does make you crazy.

I carry an image in my mind of what healing looks like.  It is standing with both feet planted firmly on the earth, arms outstretched, palms up . . . holding the son I have lost in one hand and the son I have been so graciously given to love in the other.   In my better moments, I am balanced between these two truths.   And, I believe that healing is learning to keep this balance until it becomes so familiar to us that we do it without thinking. . . . gently holding one reality and then the other . . . . accepting the truth of both. 

One of the wise moms in my support group recently described what she called  “the purpose of suffering”.  She said that she suffers in order to fully know, deep in her heart, how precious her child was and is.   Without the suffering, she says, “it would be as if the death of her child didn’t matter”.  

This mom is standing , with feet planted firmly on the earth, holding the truth of her loss in one hand and the truth of her gratitude in the other.