It's been about six weeks since Maureen's death. Well meaning friends ask me how I'm doing? It's a simple question but very difficult to answer. How I'm doing changes hour by hour, morning to night and day by day and not always in a positive direction. I have never been down this road before but the general trend is about what I might have expected. I believe I can speak for the family on this matter as well.
At Maureen's funeral service celebrating her life, I read a poignant work by Irish philosopher and poet John O'Donohue. His words rang true to me at the time but even more so from my current vantage point. That piece is appended below. It's worth a slow, thoughtful read. O'Donohue hits the nail on the head when he talks about "the silence of absence..."; being "ambushed by grief" and learning "acquaintance with the invisible form of your departed".
Grief may be different for different people but I believe John O'Donohue captures the essence of the grief felt by loved ones of the deceased.
For Grief: by John O’Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.
There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto that black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.
It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed,
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.
