JANUARY 2
The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss—that is all. It will
take mind and memory months and possibly years to gather
the details and thus learn and know the whole extent of the
loss.
—MARK TWAINIn case we are feeling driven to somehow “get done with”
our grieving (if I do it faster, maybe I will feel better sooner),
let us be reminded that, as in many of life’s pro-foundest
experiences—making love, eating, and drinking—faster is
not necessarily better. Perhaps the reassuring thing about
grieving is that the process will not be cheated. It will take
as much time as it needs. Our task is to be attentive when
the messages of mind and memory come. If we let them go
by unattended the first time, they will probably cost more
in the long run.
If I can let my resistance down, be calm in my soul, my grief will
tell me what it needs from me at each step along the way.