At first, there is no gift in grief. When someone we love dies we are too aware of our own sadness to think about the sorrow of others. Yet, despite our pain, grief awakens us to the suffering of others. Sooner than we think, we will learn of people with grief like ours and reach out to them with the gift of understanding.

Circumstances can throw us together in unexpected ways. If we have a chance to talk, we will recognize each other's suffering and will be strengthened in this new relationship. I had the opportunity to listen to a friend share grief feelings that were newer than mine just three months after my mother died. We discovered that we were not alone in our sadness and this insight was oddly uplifting.

Grief teaches us that we must slow down, simplify and turn inward to open ourselves to new understanding of the world around us. Grief also teaches us that we only have now to let people know we care about them. In our journey of grief, we find that giving and receiving love is the greatest healer of all.

As people around us experience their own tragedies, we can offer comfort and hope. When that day of reaching out arrives, we will be reminded of how far we have traveled on our own journey of grief. The death of a loved one is part of the human story that enables us to love and support each other through compassion.

Here is a portion of an E-mail from my wise online friend Marty, author of Grief Healing, a wonderful Internet resource: Loss is a part of living, after all, and sooner or later all of us will be faced with it. As Deidre Felton once wrote, "Sorrow is a matter of taking turns. This year, it's yours. Next year, it might be you setting the table for someone else who feels that they cannot cope."


Source for this article:

Hickman, Martha Whitmore. Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief. New York: Perennial Press, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 1994, April 27 entry.

Makes a thoughtful gift for a grieving friend or loved one. At $10.00 a copy, it is affordable for most. It consistently receives five-star reader reviews at online bookstores. This is the book that I turned to every day during the first year after Mom's death.