Healing After Loss

NOVEMBER 16

...And I knew...

That when the sea comes calling you stop being good

neighbors,

Well acquainted, friendly from a distance neighbors,

And you give your house for a coral castle,

And you learn to breathe under water.

—CAROL BIALOCK

We’ve known that death is a part of life. We’ve been present
to grieving friends—maybe passed through other grief ex-
periences ourselves. But each experience of grief is new, al-
ways asks its own questions, demands its own answers.
Even when the loss of a loved one comes after a long illness,
so that we are “prepared,” and surely when death comes
suddenly, without warning, we must step over into a new
country. The colors are different, the air has a different feel,
and the sounds have a different echo from what they had
before.
There is, now, nothing academic, philosophically removed
and comfortable about it. “Of course I know everyone has
to die” becomes a sudden intake of breath, a casting about
for “What do I do now? What do I do next?” And we learn
the colors and sounds of this new world, and after a while
it becomes our world.

Somewhere deep in my being is the seed of peace.