The following post was sent to me in an email by fellow ConnectingDirectors.com member Randy Mccormick. In the email Randy sent he writes this:
The following is an excerpt from the Compassionate Friends newsletter. They are an organization I have served and supported for many years and I encourage everyone to explore their work at www.compassionatefriends.com
The Compassionate Friends……is an international, non-profit, nondenominational, self-help organization offering friendship, understanding, grief education and HOPE for the future to all families who have experienced the death of a child at any age, from any cause. Their purpose is to aid in the positive reconciliation of grief and foster the physical and emotional health of bereaved parents and their surviving children through listening, sharing and understanding.
Funeral professionals from around the world would be wise to add ‘The Compassionate Friends’ to the list of self-help organizations they provide for grieving parents.
“Tears Are the Proof of Life”
“How long will the pain last?” a broken-hearted mourner asked me. “All the rest of your life.” I had to answer
truthfully. We never quite forget. No matter how many years pass, we remember.
The loss of a loved one is like a major operation; part of us is removed, and we have a scar for
the rest of our lives. This does not mean that the pain continues at the same intensity. There is a short while, at
first, when we hardly believe it; it is rather like when we cut our hand. We see the blood flowing, but the pain has
not set in yet. So when we are bereaved, there is a short while before the pain hits us. But when it does, it is massive
in its effect.
Grief is shattering. Then the wound begins to heal. It is like going through a
dark tunnel. Occasionally we glimpse a bit of light up ahead, then we lose sight of it awhile, and then see it
again, and one day we merge into the light. We are able to laugh, to care, to live. The wound is healed so to
speak. The stitches are taken out, and we are whole again.
But not quite. The scar is still there, and the scar tissue, too.
As the years go by, we manage. There are things to do, people to care for, and tasks that call for full attention.
But the pain is still there, not far below the surface. We see a face that looks familiar, hear a voice that has
echoes, see a photograph in someone’s album, see a landscape that once we saw together, and it as though the
knife were in the wound again. But not so painfully, and mixed with joy, too. Because
remembering a happy time is not all sorrow; it brings back happiness with it. As a matter of fact, we even seek
such moments in bittersweet remembrance. We have our religious memories and our memorial days, and our visits
to the cemetery. And though these bring back the pain, they bring back memories of joy as well.
How long will the pains last?
All the rest of your life.
But the thing to remember is that not only the pain will last, but the blessed memories as well. Tears are the proof of
life. The more love, the more tears. If this were true, then how could we ever ask that the pain cease altogether?
For then the memory of love would go with it. The pain of grief is the price we pay for love.
(Author unknown)
