Left Behind

For those who have lost a child, it's really hard to talk about it.

It's not hard to share the pain, it's impossible to share the pain. There are no words.

I have found this posting on the web, of some who speak about their experience without bitterness, or trivializing it. How many times have I heard, "he's in a better place now". Those times make me want to sever a limb of the person who is offering such hollow tin comfort and watch them bleed.

Here:

Part of the process of getting over it is realizing that you will never completely get over it.
so true, and honestly the only comfort to be found is in the memory.

Ashes to ashes, dust into dust
Kingdoms wil crumble, bridges will rust
Mountains will disappear, rivers will dry up
And so it goes with everything
But Love
John Denver

“Sonnet” by Robert Nathan
I am no stranger in the house of pain;
I am familiar with its every part,
From the low stile, then up the crooked lane
To the dark doorway, intimate to my heart.

Here did I sit with grief and eat his bread,
Here was I welcomed as misfortune’s guest,
And there’s no room but where I’ve laid my head
On misery’s accommodating breast.

So, sorrow, does my knocking rouse you up?
Open the door, old mother; it is I.

Bring grief’s good goblet out, the sad, sweet cup;
Fill it with wine of silence, strong and dry.

For I’ve a story to amuse your ears,
Of youth and hope, of middle age and tears.

My sister lost her 24-year-old son to an IED in Afghanistan. She says people don’t want to look into the dark, silent corner where, amid the ordinary business of life continues, she carries the brightness of his memory and the darkness of her grief. Thank you. I am sending this to her, because you can speak to her in a way that I, having so far been able to keep the gnawing of fear just beyond the edge of my consciousness, been unable and unworthy to do.

from one who is reading your book with grattude; one who leads a GriefShare group where losses run so deep; and one who while my daughter still lives (and I am grateful!) I too weep and wonder and look for light in what will never be for her…as she struggles with mental illness…and we face many struggles along with her. You remind me today, in the midst of very difficult news with her, that I must look for the light, trust God’s grace, and know we are not alone.
Thank you, Tony.

Yesterday was my best friend’s birthday, Carolyn who died of cancer at 15 after two years of it. I am now 45 so it’s been 30 years and maybe that’s part of why I woke too early, struggling to find the joy, the love of God. Thank you for your crystal words. Grief remembered can do this for me, it can keep my heart soft, keep me running to the Comforter. God be with you

Grief is relentless

http://tonywoodlief.com/?p=3252

Hope for the hopeless:
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C. S. Lewis

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake,
or watch, or weep tonight,

and give Your angels and saints
charge over those who sleep.

Tend Your sick ones, O Lord Christ.
Rest Your weary ones. Bless Your dying ones.

Soothe Your suffering ones.

Shield Your joyous ones,

and all for Your love’s sake. Amen.


St. Augustine