I believe that beautiful souls (Angels) appear in your life when you are grieving. One was my Mother’s friend who became my very good friend. Friends and/or acquaintances that know what you are going through because they once lost someone. For those special people I am grateful for.
I believe that grief and gratitude
go hand in hand,
and are two powerful states of being . . .
when my first child died
I found no grace or gratitude in my grief.
My heart was a stone . . .
I was utterly forlorn.
In the springtime after his death
I found no joy,
no relief
in the greening of the fields,
in the sight of new calves,
or in the flowers that speckled the landscape around me.
Gratitude has visited me
upon the deaths of others in my life,
but not that first time.
My stone heart suffered for many years afterwards,
as I ran as far away as I could
and made many terrible decisions over that time.
I have healed after burning through,
and now
I understand and cherish
the gratitude that can come with grief.
I could not go through that first experience again
without grace and gratitude.
I have suffered so much grief in the last 3 years, pretty much losing my entire support system.
My brother, who was my best friend, we came of age together.
My mom shortly after my brother & then my husband 18 months later. I believe I am currently living in the midst of grief. I am thankful/grateful for each new day & all that each day presents.
I am grateful I had each one in my life & for all the time spent together. The good, the bad, the ugly. All the laughs, all the joy, all the tears…I am grateful that I have been given the gift of resilience, new beginnings, new perspectives. I am very blessed while in the midst of great sadness. 🙏🏻✨🖤
Dear PKR, I am so sorry for your losses.
So much to bear in such a short period of time.
I’m happy to hear you are so resilient,
that you are able to feel joy
and look forward to the future
And that you feel your positivity
as you continue to grieve.
Many blessings to you.
Your gratitude will heal you,
dear PKR . . .
you have opened up space for it
and I too,
feel you are blessed
even ‘while in the midst of great sadness.’.
There is underlying permanent grief, alongside with a lot of gratefulness for the richness of deep love towards life, loved ones and that which always is. It might not be obvious to others even, but it is. When a loved one will be about to leave for good, it will be overwhelmingly painful. I don´t know if there will be gratefulness present in that moment, but gratefulness will be there deep within, as it never went away, no matter what. My father aged 95 now is slowly slowly regressing but still present, more vulnerable. less grumpy, softer and showing that he misses us more than he used to. Deeply grateful for the moments left together with him in the midst of grief about his slowly having to say good bye for good one day. We share these rare moments now while not speaking much, holding his hands on and off, experiencing the emotional relation mainly without words, but nevertheless, clearly being with each other in mutual gratefulness.
When my youngest sister unexpectedly passed 20 months ago,
I mostly felt shock and disbelief.
I felt especially grateful for her two sons and her grand daughter.
Blessings to all.
A second comment to share a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer that she posted two days ago since several comments are about very fresh grief. Rosemerry has written amazing poetry about living through the grief of losing her teenage son to suicide and then the death of her beloved father, and continuing to love them and her memories. If you go to her site and click on the tag “grief” below this poem you’ll find many more.
You do not have to get over it.
You will carry your grief
and be carried by loss
in any way the carrying happens.
As if you had a choice.
Grief builds rooms inside you
no one else will ever see,
rooms with doors
only you can pass through
filled with songs or silence
only you can hear.
Rest here. Or dance here.
Shout. Or whisper. Rise
like milkweed seeds on the wind.
Or lie. Here, you can only do it right.
Here, there are no other eyes
or ears to tell you what to do
or how long it will take
or what choices to make.
And if you are weeping, weep.
And if you are dry, you are dry.
The rest of the world
can talk about stages
of grief and how it should be,
but you, you do not have to listen.
Thank you Barb for posting this poem. Like Mary, I also agree – ‘I love the idea of going to a room within myself
and grieving in any way that comes naturally.’
Barb C., thank you for posting this recent poem of Rosemerry’s. I felt like she wrote it to me, for me. Much of what she wrote has been/is my journey with grief having lost almost my entire support system, (my fav brother/best friend, my mom & my husband recently), in the last 3 years.😪
Thank you for this poem, Barb.
I love Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
I love the idea of going to a room within myself
and grieving in any way that comes naturally.
Also thanks for reminding me of
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
Her poetry is a gift to all who grieve.
When my mother died I was so grateful that I had just had a really good visit with her a few days before, with my older daughter there as well. My mom had vascular dementia for many years and didn’t know who she was any more, but in that visit she had flashes of words that made sense, as my daughter told her who I was and who she was. My older daughter looks a great deal like the younger me, which may have helped Mom find that word connection.
In that visit we also hugged and held her. I felt a whole-body relaxation from her and realized that she probably got very few loving touches. My older sister visited her regularly and no doubt hugged her, but day to day she might not have any more than a friendly pat on the shoulder from a caregiver. It felt so loving to hold her and I’m glad to have that memory. I wrote about that visit here https://biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/2014/05/goodbye-mom.html.
Another bit of gratefulness: I went from that visit with Mom to a bunch of other activities, including a conference where I was giving two presentations. I wasn’t looking at personal email for a while, then caught up with a slew of emails telling all the siblings that she had fallen and broken her hip the day after my visit and was in the hospital. Seeing a call come in from one of my older brothers in the middle of the day told me there was more news. He was calling to tell me that she had died.
I went to the bathroom to put cold water on my face and to cry a little. One of the women at my lunch table came in and asked if I was okay; she had seen my face as I left the table with my phone. I told her what had happened. This person I had just met gave me a hug and patted my back when I needed that.
That evening, I went out for dinner with her and others of those women. They were just wonderful. I hadn’t known them before this conference and they struck just the right note of listening to my stories about my mom and also not making the whole evening only about me and my sorrow. I thanked them all for the gift of instant friendship and caring.
Years later, that woman who comforted me in the bathroom turned out to be the officiant at the wedding of one of my best friends. I got to thank her again for her kindness, another thing to be grateful for.
I currently am in deep grief over the loss of a spiritual teacher whom I had believed to be an illumined soul. New revelations have come out that he had harmed some of his closest students. In the midst of my grief, I experience gratefulness for the support of the community of others who are going through the same grief as I am right now. I am grateful for the voice of Wisdom within me and for space in my life to start tuning more into that voice. I am grateful for my husband who has held space for my grief, for my minister whom I was able to process my grief with, for the song “Deep Peace” with Bill Douglas and the Ars Nova singers– every time I listen to that song I am able to release more of my grief. I even am grateful for the practices that I learned from my former imperfect teacher, which are common to many spiritual traditions and therefore deeper than the teacher, and which continue to support me.
I know of this kind of grief Elizabeth.
A yogi whose words and practices I followed faithfully
had a fall from grace thirty some years ago.
His disciples called him Gurudev, beloved teacher.
He had a large community in Massachusetts.
Many were devastated.
I just remember feeling very empty.
This taught me not to put any person on too high of a pedestal. .
Sure. Those two things seem to come together quite often. Even in the intense situation of a young friend dying, I have found a tiny bit of gratefulness in having the privilege of knowing them. Having our lives intersect for a short time. Grief is overwhelming, but if you crack the door open a little bit for gratefulness, you can find it in the darkness.
Yes, I have. My sister Mary had ovarian cancer that had spread into a massive tumor and she was too weak for chemo. She accepted this situation and refused to see it as a problem. She died quite peacefully. She always had a delightful sense of humor. The family use to say that she should be a stand up comedian. Two days before her passing, she was drifting in and out of consciousness and suddenly she opened her eyes wide, turned and looked at me and said, “Carol, I think I’m becoming a Pentecostal, I saying words I’ve never heard before, I think I’m speaking in tongues!” I don’t share that to belittle anyone’s religion. It is just an example of her attitude and her acceptance of the fact that she was dying and doing her best to cooperate with that reality. I was so grateful to know she was out of pain and that she passed quite peacefully.
Yes, just these past few days. While we did not lose our home or life during Helene, because the area was hit so hard, there is no way we can run our business here in WNC so we made the hard decision to move again. I love this area. I love the mountains. And I’m sad that we have to move, although we were looking for a new house before the storm since the one we live in is not good. But… I am so grateful to have found a nice new home in a great area with a healthy economy.
A few years back, my brother passed away. He had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and before he could start any treatment- he left this world. I went to be with him and offer the care that I could…He was my “big brother” …the one I went to when I needed help. He was always there. At the end of his life and the last minutes of his life I was with him…that was a true gift for me. I was sad but so happy that I got to spend time with him and also to see the support of family. As Loc Tran said…”We need one another”.
I remember having gratefulness for my family during when my mom was in hospice, and then after she passed at the funeral. I was grateful to see how loved she was and cared for. I’m grateful for my brother as he had her at his house during that time.
This past Friday, I attended a visitation for my Aunt Mary who passed on. She was a gem. She was 95, and had lived a full life, in every sends of the word. She is my father’s sister. As I renewed relationships with her children, my cousins, and looked at all the photographs of her which included my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and other cousins, I felt a very deep appreciation for my history and all these amazing people who, in some way, have influenced my life and are a part of who I am. In addition to heartfelt gratefulness, I also felt a desire to honor the best of their lives by how I move forward in mine.
Absolutely, and it was yesterday. I have been particulary ill of late, able to do less and less, and this caused me to sink into depression, not wanting to carry on. I know I am not a burden to those who care for me but society’s attitude is that there are too many elderly people needing increasing levels of care which can’t be accomodated or afforded. That and my own weariness with the daily struggles has been hard. I couldn’t answer yesterday’s question but came on later to see what everyone had written and found Carol’s post quoting a poem by Donna Ashworth. Reading that poem broke my heart and then put it back together. I am worthy and I do matter and I can and will carry on. Thank you, Carol. I am going to buy the book that contains that poem. Thank you to everyone who posts on here. You never know how much you may help someone. Love to you all 🙏❤️
Your post resonates deeply with me,
dear Butterfly,
and my heart aches with what you are going through . . .
I went a year and a half
where I could barely walk,
until it was discovered my hip was completely shot.
During that time of not knowing,
I could do less and less of what I normally do,
and experienced that same weariness you speak of.
Day after painful day,
telling my friends I was doing all right,
but inside feeling like my life was over.
After the hip replacement
I have regained my mobility
and have learned a valuable lesson that I will carry with me,
for there will come another time
when I need to call on your resilience,
courage, and bravery . . .
thank you for this
with love . . . ♥
Dear Butterfly, thank you for sharing your struggles here. I just read an essay yesterday about this very thing you describe about “the elderly, sick” being a burden on society & the support for euthanasia in regards to this population. The article referred to the UK, NHS. My heart was broken to read this. It made me angry too.
I love your posts, please continue. You are seen here & valued.❤️
Blessings to You.✨✨✨✨✨
I also appreciated the poem, Carol. I recorded it in a message for my daughters, which I do fairly often with poems I want to share. Still reading to my “babies” who are now 30 and 34, nearly 35.
I always look forward to your posts, Butterfly. You have a beautiful way of seeing what’s around you. I hope that you can regain your strength and start feeling better.
Dear Butterfly, I have you in my thoughts and prayers tht you will be feeling better. Carol’s poem also resonated with me…The people who come to this site are such a gift…and you are among them. Please don’t ever think that you don’t matter….you, your voice of wisdom and caring is very special. I for one believe you matter and are loved.
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I believe that beautiful souls (Angels) appear in your life when you are grieving. One was my Mother’s friend who became my very good friend. Friends and/or acquaintances that know what you are going through because they once lost someone. For those special people I am grateful for.
I believe that grief and gratitude
go hand in hand,
and are two powerful states of being . . .
when my first child died
I found no grace or gratitude in my grief.
My heart was a stone . . .
I was utterly forlorn.
In the springtime after his death
I found no joy,
no relief
in the greening of the fields,
in the sight of new calves,
or in the flowers that speckled the landscape around me.
Gratitude has visited me
upon the deaths of others in my life,
but not that first time.
My stone heart suffered for many years afterwards,
as I ran as far away as I could
and made many terrible decisions over that time.
I have healed after burning through,
and now
I understand and cherish
the gratitude that can come with grief.
I could not go through that first experience again
without grace and gratitude.
Thank you for sharing your story, sparrow.
Dear Sparrow,
How terrible that must have been.
I am deeply moved.
Thank you for sharing from your heart.
Thank You dear Sparrow.
I have suffered so much grief in the last 3 years, pretty much losing my entire support system.
My brother, who was my best friend, we came of age together.
My mom shortly after my brother & then my husband 18 months later. I believe I am currently living in the midst of grief. I am thankful/grateful for each new day & all that each day presents.
I am grateful I had each one in my life & for all the time spent together. The good, the bad, the ugly. All the laughs, all the joy, all the tears…I am grateful that I have been given the gift of resilience, new beginnings, new perspectives. I am very blessed while in the midst of great sadness. 🙏🏻✨🖤
Dear PKR, I am so sorry for your losses.
So much to bear in such a short period of time.
I’m happy to hear you are so resilient,
that you are able to feel joy
and look forward to the future
And that you feel your positivity
as you continue to grieve.
Many blessings to you.
Your gratitude will heal you,
dear PKR . . .
you have opened up space for it
and I too,
feel you are blessed
even ‘while in the midst of great sadness.’.
There is underlying permanent grief, alongside with a lot of gratefulness for the richness of deep love towards life, loved ones and that which always is. It might not be obvious to others even, but it is. When a loved one will be about to leave for good, it will be overwhelmingly painful. I don´t know if there will be gratefulness present in that moment, but gratefulness will be there deep within, as it never went away, no matter what. My father aged 95 now is slowly slowly regressing but still present, more vulnerable. less grumpy, softer and showing that he misses us more than he used to. Deeply grateful for the moments left together with him in the midst of grief about his slowly having to say good bye for good one day. We share these rare moments now while not speaking much, holding his hands on and off, experiencing the emotional relation mainly without words, but nevertheless, clearly being with each other in mutual gratefulness.
When my youngest sister unexpectedly passed 20 months ago,
I mostly felt shock and disbelief.
I felt especially grateful for her two sons and her grand daughter.
Blessings to all.
A second comment to share a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer that she posted two days ago since several comments are about very fresh grief. Rosemerry has written amazing poetry about living through the grief of losing her teenage son to suicide and then the death of her beloved father, and continuing to love them and her memories. If you go to her site and click on the tag “grief” below this poem you’ll find many more.
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2024/10/11/no-matter-what-they-say/
“No Matter What They Say”
You do not have to get over it.
You will carry your grief
and be carried by loss
in any way the carrying happens.
As if you had a choice.
Grief builds rooms inside you
no one else will ever see,
rooms with doors
only you can pass through
filled with songs or silence
only you can hear.
Rest here. Or dance here.
Shout. Or whisper. Rise
like milkweed seeds on the wind.
Or lie. Here, you can only do it right.
Here, there are no other eyes
or ears to tell you what to do
or how long it will take
or what choices to make.
And if you are weeping, weep.
And if you are dry, you are dry.
The rest of the world
can talk about stages
of grief and how it should be,
but you, you do not have to listen.
Thank you Barb for posting this poem. Like Mary, I also agree – ‘I love the idea of going to a room within myself
and grieving in any way that comes naturally.’
Barb C., thank you for posting this recent poem of Rosemerry’s. I felt like she wrote it to me, for me. Much of what she wrote has been/is my journey with grief having lost almost my entire support system, (my fav brother/best friend, my mom & my husband recently), in the last 3 years.😪
Thank you for this poem, Barb.
I love Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
I love the idea of going to a room within myself
and grieving in any way that comes naturally.
Also thanks for reminding me of
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
Her poetry is a gift to all who grieve.
When my mother died I was so grateful that I had just had a really good visit with her a few days before, with my older daughter there as well. My mom had vascular dementia for many years and didn’t know who she was any more, but in that visit she had flashes of words that made sense, as my daughter told her who I was and who she was. My older daughter looks a great deal like the younger me, which may have helped Mom find that word connection.
In that visit we also hugged and held her. I felt a whole-body relaxation from her and realized that she probably got very few loving touches. My older sister visited her regularly and no doubt hugged her, but day to day she might not have any more than a friendly pat on the shoulder from a caregiver. It felt so loving to hold her and I’m glad to have that memory. I wrote about that visit here https://biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/2014/05/goodbye-mom.html.
Another bit of gratefulness: I went from that visit with Mom to a bunch of other activities, including a conference where I was giving two presentations. I wasn’t looking at personal email for a while, then caught up with a slew of emails telling all the siblings that she had fallen and broken her hip the day after my visit and was in the hospital. Seeing a call come in from one of my older brothers in the middle of the day told me there was more news. He was calling to tell me that she had died.
I went to the bathroom to put cold water on my face and to cry a little. One of the women at my lunch table came in and asked if I was okay; she had seen my face as I left the table with my phone. I told her what had happened. This person I had just met gave me a hug and patted my back when I needed that.
That evening, I went out for dinner with her and others of those women. They were just wonderful. I hadn’t known them before this conference and they struck just the right note of listening to my stories about my mom and also not making the whole evening only about me and my sorrow. I thanked them all for the gift of instant friendship and caring.
Years later, that woman who comforted me in the bathroom turned out to be the officiant at the wedding of one of my best friends. I got to thank her again for her kindness, another thing to be grateful for.
I currently am in deep grief over the loss of a spiritual teacher whom I had believed to be an illumined soul. New revelations have come out that he had harmed some of his closest students. In the midst of my grief, I experience gratefulness for the support of the community of others who are going through the same grief as I am right now. I am grateful for the voice of Wisdom within me and for space in my life to start tuning more into that voice. I am grateful for my husband who has held space for my grief, for my minister whom I was able to process my grief with, for the song “Deep Peace” with Bill Douglas and the Ars Nova singers– every time I listen to that song I am able to release more of my grief. I even am grateful for the practices that I learned from my former imperfect teacher, which are common to many spiritual traditions and therefore deeper than the teacher, and which continue to support me.
I know of this kind of grief Elizabeth.
A yogi whose words and practices I followed faithfully
had a fall from grace thirty some years ago.
His disciples called him Gurudev, beloved teacher.
He had a large community in Massachusetts.
Many were devastated.
I just remember feeling very empty.
This taught me not to put any person on too high of a pedestal. .
Sure. Those two things seem to come together quite often. Even in the intense situation of a young friend dying, I have found a tiny bit of gratefulness in having the privilege of knowing them. Having our lives intersect for a short time. Grief is overwhelming, but if you crack the door open a little bit for gratefulness, you can find it in the darkness.
I agree with Barb, Charlie.
Beautifully said.
Beautifully said, Charlie. “Grief is overwhelming, but if you crack the door open a little bit for gratefulness, you can find it in the darkness.”
That statement brought a smile to me and stood out.
Yes, I have. My sister Mary had ovarian cancer that had spread into a massive tumor and she was too weak for chemo. She accepted this situation and refused to see it as a problem. She died quite peacefully. She always had a delightful sense of humor. The family use to say that she should be a stand up comedian. Two days before her passing, she was drifting in and out of consciousness and suddenly she opened her eyes wide, turned and looked at me and said, “Carol, I think I’m becoming a Pentecostal, I saying words I’ve never heard before, I think I’m speaking in tongues!” I don’t share that to belittle anyone’s religion. It is just an example of her attitude and her acceptance of the fact that she was dying and doing her best to cooperate with that reality. I was so grateful to know she was out of pain and that she passed quite peacefully.
🙂
Her sense of humor was clearly an essential part of her life. I’m glad you have those memories and that you could be there.
Yes, just these past few days. While we did not lose our home or life during Helene, because the area was hit so hard, there is no way we can run our business here in WNC so we made the hard decision to move again. I love this area. I love the mountains. And I’m sad that we have to move, although we were looking for a new house before the storm since the one we live in is not good. But… I am so grateful to have found a nice new home in a great area with a healthy economy.
You are the essence of resilience, Sunnypatti. 🙏
Oh my! Many changes for you. Blessings!
A few years back, my brother passed away. He had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and before he could start any treatment- he left this world. I went to be with him and offer the care that I could…He was my “big brother” …the one I went to when I needed help. He was always there. At the end of his life and the last minutes of his life I was with him…that was a true gift for me. I was sad but so happy that I got to spend time with him and also to see the support of family. As Loc Tran said…”We need one another”.
I remember having gratefulness for my family during when my mom was in hospice, and then after she passed at the funeral. I was grateful to see how loved she was and cared for. I’m grateful for my brother as he had her at his house during that time.
This past Friday, I attended a visitation for my Aunt Mary who passed on. She was a gem. She was 95, and had lived a full life, in every sends of the word. She is my father’s sister. As I renewed relationships with her children, my cousins, and looked at all the photographs of her which included my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and other cousins, I felt a very deep appreciation for my history and all these amazing people who, in some way, have influenced my life and are a part of who I am. In addition to heartfelt gratefulness, I also felt a desire to honor the best of their lives by how I move forward in mine.
Wow, Mary Mantei, she lived a very long and productive life.
Absolutely, and it was yesterday. I have been particulary ill of late, able to do less and less, and this caused me to sink into depression, not wanting to carry on. I know I am not a burden to those who care for me but society’s attitude is that there are too many elderly people needing increasing levels of care which can’t be accomodated or afforded. That and my own weariness with the daily struggles has been hard. I couldn’t answer yesterday’s question but came on later to see what everyone had written and found Carol’s post quoting a poem by Donna Ashworth. Reading that poem broke my heart and then put it back together. I am worthy and I do matter and I can and will carry on. Thank you, Carol. I am going to buy the book that contains that poem. Thank you to everyone who posts on here. You never know how much you may help someone. Love to you all 🙏❤️
Namaste dear Butterfly.
Your post resonates deeply with me,
dear Butterfly,
and my heart aches with what you are going through . . .
I went a year and a half
where I could barely walk,
until it was discovered my hip was completely shot.
During that time of not knowing,
I could do less and less of what I normally do,
and experienced that same weariness you speak of.
Day after painful day,
telling my friends I was doing all right,
but inside feeling like my life was over.
After the hip replacement
I have regained my mobility
and have learned a valuable lesson that I will carry with me,
for there will come another time
when I need to call on your resilience,
courage, and bravery . . .
thank you for this
with love . . . ♥
Dear Butterfly, thank you for sharing your struggles here. I just read an essay yesterday about this very thing you describe about “the elderly, sick” being a burden on society & the support for euthanasia in regards to this population. The article referred to the UK, NHS. My heart was broken to read this. It made me angry too.
I love your posts, please continue. You are seen here & valued.❤️
Blessings to You.✨✨✨✨✨
I appreciate you and everything you share, Butterfly. Thank you for being one of the people who creates this community.
You are most welcome, Butterfly. I’m so thankful that the poem helped several folks just as it had helped me.
I also appreciated the poem, Carol. I recorded it in a message for my daughters, which I do fairly often with poems I want to share. Still reading to my “babies” who are now 30 and 34, nearly 35.
I always look forward to your posts, Butterfly. You have a beautiful way of seeing what’s around you. I hope that you can regain your strength and start feeling better.
Dear Butterfly, I have you in my thoughts and prayers tht you will be feeling better. Carol’s poem also resonated with me…The people who come to this site are such a gift…and you are among them. Please don’t ever think that you don’t matter….you, your voice of wisdom and caring is very special. I for one believe you matter and are loved.
Butterfly I’m sending a virtual hug and I hope you feel better soon