Healing After Loss

SEPTEMBER 27 To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it. —MOTHER TERESA At first we are almost immobilized. We do ...

SEPTEMBER 28 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know ful ...

SEPTEMBER 29 Haste, haste, has no blessing. —SWAHILI PROVERB At first we are so busy—so much to do, people to talk with, arrange ...

SEPTEMBER 30 All that we do Is touched with ocean, yet we remain On the shore of what we know. —RICHARD WILBUR We who stand clos ...

OCTOBER 1 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come ...

OCTOBER 2 All I know from my own experience is that the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we ...

OCTOBER 3 As the months pass and the seasons change, something of tranquillity descends, and although the well-remembered footst ...

OCTOBER 4 Great Spirit, now I pray to you... Great Spirit, hear me; My soul is weary, Now I pray that your spirit will dwell in ...

OCTOBER 5 I sit on the rich, moist earth, green earth, and draw my knees to my chest. All is not lost. The birds have simply mov ...

OCTOBER 6 When she came through the door of the children’s room she could feel his presence as strongly throughout the room as i ...

OCTOBER 7 She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin’d in thought, ...

OCTOBER 8 We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irre- ducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately m ...

OCTOBER 9 ...the dead have an afterlife in the form of a continuing influ- ence on their survivors. This seems to be particularl ...

OCTOBER 10 In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, ...

OCTOBER 11 He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself. —GEORGE HERBERT Sometimes we have suf ...

OCTOBER 12 Incredibly, I’ve gone all afternoon without thinking of her. —HOYT HICKMAN We thought we would never be able to do it ...

OCTOBER 13 Come to me, come to me, O my God; Come to me everywhere! Let the trees mean thee, and the grassy sod, And the water a ...

OCTOBER 14 To read the works of others who have gone through grief is another way of keeping the process going, and of finding a ...

OCTOBER 15 Because of her, he had learned to look for the birds—the darting flight of wild canaries (yellow sun on yellow wings) ...

OCTOBER 16 Excessive mourning is nonproductive, someone remarks. A social inconvenience, downright inconsiderate in the public e ...