An Army of Grievers

I am glad I joined a support group for those who lost their loved ones.  I now feel less isolated and alone.  I see that there are others in the same journey as I making strides rebuilding their own lives.  I was once rigid and fixed in my belief that people who experienced loss should just “get on with the program.”  This small army of grievers opened my eyes and my heart to what compassion and love is.

There is a time for mourning and weeping.  It is okay to feel this loss and to reflect deeply on how this loss profoundly changes lives.  Oftentimes, society casts disapprovingly on those who stop and seemingly wallow in their loss.  I, too, masked my ignorance with my default use of reason to explain carefully screened actions.  Outwardly, I seemed to have gotten over this loss maintaining a semblance of normalcy and high functioning in life’s covetous demands.  Inwardly, I was parched and dying.

What the group did for me was to help me to feel the raw emotions of loss without judgment.  In doing so, I have released my fears of emptiness, loneliness, inadequacies, buried guilt, shame, failure, and hopelessness.  Unshackled from this burden my heart began to sing anew and I  now see and feel the excitement and hope for tomorrow.

I will survive and thrive and live again.