Grief

One of the books I am reading for CPE is My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. (Riverhead Books, New York, 2000). I encountered this on p. 38, and found it to be a wonderful and freeing word on grief, and I have nothing to add to it.

Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don't grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot's wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt.

Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.

.....

      Grief.
      I pull up anchor,
      and catch the wind.