by Lonnette Harrell

Created on: December 19, 2008

Writing to a friend tonight, about the grief that he is experiencing over the recent loss of his loving mother, I pondered the experience of grief, and what it means. This is what I wrote:

"Grief is both universal and solitary. No one has the exact same loss, or the exact same way of dealing with grief, and yet there are parts that can be shared and understood.

When you are grieving, every emotion is normal and understandable. Perhaps grief is the closest feeling to insanity there is. (And complicated by a sometimes too calm demeanor in public.)

But it is true...until you have been there, don't try to tell me you understand, because there is no real understanding, apart from losing one that you love so dearly, or even one who was an important part of your life. It is only then, that you will comprehend grief. There is no finality like the finality of death, and there is no solution to it-no fixing it. It is done, and until we meet in heaven, there is no bandage for the hole in our heart, and the ache in our soul. (There is only the hope of being reunited, but it is an inadequate balm in the stark reality of the present.)

But when there are others who know...who have experienced that pain and grief...there is a fellowship of understanding, that becomes an unexplainable bond. Hearts ache in familiar ways, and tears fall from unbearable sorrow. It is the club that no one wants to join, but there is a refuge to be found, in those who have also walked this road, and somehow survived.

And there is the aloneness that only the bereaved can grasp-far different than loneliness, and it can occur in a room full of people. The feeling that the world is not the same, and will never be again. (There is a part of the soul forever missing.)

There is no way to ever prepare for it, because even when we have done our best, we cannot comprehend the loudness of their absence. It is there at the table, and there in the chair, and on their side of the bed. It is everywhere, and in the most unexpected places as well.

(An envelope with their name on it, a Christmas decoration that was their favorite, a pair of shoes hidden under the bed, a medicine bottle, a robe left hanging on the door, a pair of glasses on the desk, or the scent of their cologne.) And then there are the places, where their presence cannot be denied, and the remembrances that go with those places. And what about the songs, that are as alive (with their memory), as their spoken words were?

Grief is a journey, a process both cruel, and cathartic. And in the end, grief is the only road to healing, though never to complete recovery. Loss is not something you "get over". It can only be journeyed through, and you will be forever changed by that journey..."

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