Healing After Loss

NOVEMBER 26 So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. —JOHN BUNYAN If we believe in a life afte ...

NOVEMBER 27 In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own. —ALICE WALKER At a time of loss, our heritage—that succession of ge ...

NOVEMBER 28 The light died in the low clouds. Falling snow drank in the dusk. Shrouded in silence, the branches wrapped me in th ...

NOVEMBER 29 God is coming to us. But in order for that truly to happen, we must go as well to God. The highway runs in two direc ...

NOVEMBER 30 Into Paradise may the angels in whom I do not believe lead thee; at thy coming may the martyrs long decomposed take ...

DECEMBER 1 Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of today. —ROMAIN ...

DECEMBER 2 There is a gravitational pull, an endless current which we do not recognize which draws us beyond all things and peop ...

DECEMBER 3 I was beginning to do better, I thought I was doing better, but a few days ago the holidays just hit me. —WIDOW, CONT ...

DECEMBER 4 There are seasons of prayer which, though spent amid dis- tractions and tediousness, are yet, owing to a good intenti ...

DECEMBER 5 What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not being able to call them back as it is grief at ...

DECEMBER 6 Piece by piece, I reenter the world. A new phase. A new body, a new voice. Birds console me by flying, trees by growi ...

DECEMBER 7 What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Ah, but it isn’t! That’s part of what the ...

DECEMBER 8 When I asked the orthopedic surgeon who treated me whether people often fracture bones after bereavement, he said, wi ...

DECEMBER 9 When everything is dark, when we are surrounded by des- pairing voices, when we do not see any exits, then we can fin ...

DECEMBER 10 Even as I stood there, the tears streaming down my face, I felt a kind of joy for him, a strange gaiety almost, that ...

DECEMBER 11 Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. —PSALM 30 How many times have we lain awake at nig ...

DECEMBER 12 Dead and gone though they may be, as we come to under- stand them in new ways, it is as though they come to under- s ...

DECEMBER 13 I feel a strong immortal hope, which bears my mournful spirit up beneath its mountain load; redeemed from death, and ...

DECEMBER 14 I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face. I have come to the brink ...

DECEMBER 15 Bless Thou to be mine eye. May mine eye bless all it sees; I will bless my neighbour, May my neighbour bless me. —CE ...