I have often found others' words to be of comfort along my grief journey, and I thought I would share a few of the pieces that have brought me hope, or reassurance, or lightness during the past few years. Some of them may already be familiar, but some will be new to you. I hope that they may bring you something of that sustenance too.
You will not always hurt like this These words are true. If they do not reach your heart today, do not reject them: keep them in your mind. One morning – not tomorrow perhaps, but the day after tomorrow, or the month after next month. One morning, the dawn will wake you with the inconceivable surprise: Your grief will have lost one small moment in its force. Be ready for the time when you can feel for yourself that these words are true: You will not always hurt like this.
Author unknown
This got me through my darkest days. Its simplicity and immediacy became something I hung on to with desperation in the early years; I did keep the words in my mind, and those words helped to keep me sane.
A Beginning
One day you wake up and realise
you must have survived
because you are still here, alive and breathing.
But you don’t remember the infinitely small steps
and decisions you took to get there.
Your only awareness is that you have shed miles of tears
on what seems to be an endless road of sorrow.
One day, one glorious day,
you wake up and feel your skin tingle again.
And you forget, just for an instant,
that your heart is broken…
And it is a beginning. Susan Borrowman
If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something
you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger
than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is,
even if we’re apart, I’ll always be with you.
AA Milne
Afterparty
I held a party the other week and grief came.
She wasn’t invited but she came anyway - barged her way in through the door and settled down like she was here to stay.
And then she introduced me to the friends she’d brought with her - Anger. Fear. Frustration. Guilt. Hopelessness.
And they sang in the loudest voices, took up space in every corner of the room and spoke over anyone else that tried to talk.
They made it messy and loud and uncomfortable.
But finally, they left.
And long afterwards, when I was all alone, I realised there was still someone here.
Quietly clearing up after the rest.
I asked who she was and she told me, “Love.”
And I assumed that’s why she looked familiar - because I had met her before.
“Or perhaps,” she said, “it’s because I’ve been here the whole time.”
And I was confused then because I hadn’t seen her all evening.
But when I looked more closely,
when I looked into her eyes,
I realised quietly that she had been here.
All the time.
She’d just been dressed as grief.
Becky Hemsley from When I am Gone (2023)
How can it be that it’s nearly six years since I saw your face?
To begin with
I only wanted to be with you
Not here amongst the trees
The washing up and the grass
Not here to hear the birds sing
In the morning
And the blackbird’s cry at dusk.
Nothing
I only wanted to be with you
It was only time,
the silent pulse
teaching me how
I still carry you
Wherever I walk, wherever I sleep
You are here
In every breath, every beat of my heart
Quietly now, more gently
I carry you
my darling, my beautiful child
We’ve never been apart.
Barbara Boxall, June 2023
I am privileged to call the bereaved mother who wrote this beautiful poem
my friend. She and I belong to the same caring and supportive local TCF
group for bereaved parents.
Try to praise the mutilated world
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh)
This was given to me many years ago by a client. It has become
very precious to me, as it speaks of the devastation and cruelty of loss, and yet also of simple pleasures, and special memories
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Khalil Gibran
The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love (2002)
I don't remember where I stumbled upon this poem by Ellen Bass,
but it spoke to me immediately, as did her book The Courage to Heal*,
when I first found it over 30 years ago.
And when great souls die, after a period, peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.
Maya Angelou
To Honour You
To honour you,
I get up every morning and take a breath.
and start another day without you in it.
To honour you,
I laugh and love with those who knew your smile and the way
your eyes twinkled with mischief and secret knowledge.
To honour you,
I take the time to appreciate everyone I love, I know now there is no guarantee of days or hours spent in their presence.
To honour you,
I listen to music you would have liked,
and sing at the top of my lungs with the window rolled down.
To honour you,
I take chances, say what I feel, hold nothing back,
risk making a fool of myself and dance every dance.
You were my light, my heart, my gift of love
from the very highest source.
So every day I promise to make a difference,
share a smile, live, laugh and love.
Now I live for us both, so all I do,
I do to honour you
Connie F Keifer Byrd
In truth I don't do all these things, yet. Maybe one day...
Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.
Do not care if you just arrive in your skeleton.
Would love to take a walk with you. Miss you.
Would love to make you shrimp saganaki.
Like you used to make me when you were alive.
Love to feed you. Sit over steaming
bowls of pilaf. Little roasted tomatoes
covered in pepper and nutmeg. Miss you.
Would love to walk to the post office with you.
Bring the ghost dog. We’ll walk past the waterfall
and you can tell me about the after.
Wish you. Wish you would come back for a while.
Don’t even need to bring your skin sack. I’ll know
you. I know you will know me even though
I’m bigger now. Greyer. I’ll show you my garden.
I’d like to hop in the leaf pile you raked but if you
want to jump in? I’ll rake it for you. Miss you
standing looking out at the river with your rake
in your hand. Miss you in your puffy blue jacket.
They’re hip now. I can bring you a new one
if you’ll only come by. Know I told you
it was ok to go. Know I told you
it was ok to leave me. Why’d you believe me?
You always believed me. Wish you would
come back so we could talk about truth.
Miss you. Wish you would walk through my
door. Stare out from the mirror. Come through
the pipes.
Gabriel Calvocoressi
The loss of ordinary. The loss of what was. The loss of all those moments we took for granted, never once imagining they would become such
precious reminders of what we once had. I have so many of those
in my mind. My memory knows what Anton felt like to hold, it knows
his smell, the touch of him, the sound of his voice and his laughter, the
changing colour of his green eyes, the solidness of his presence. And, too,
the hoody he loved, the cotton shorts, the flip flops I have with the
shape of his feet imprinted on the soles.
He is Gone
You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived,
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared,
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on,
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on
David Harkins
I still find this hard to read, because it makes me think of Anton,
and all the pain I still hold inside. But it also speaks to me of the wonder
of sheer determination. How you and I have somehow found the strength
to go on, day after day, in the darkness of loss, faltering, stumbling, falling...
pulling ourselves up, starting again. There is nothing about this journey
that is easy. It is bitter and cold and black. Yet we drag ourselves along
the hard and stony path, bleeding our pain, determined to reach a kinder place.
Notes
*In 1988, Ellen Bass and Laura Davies wrote a controversial book called The Courage to Heal. It is a book for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and despite its critics I believe it to be a very important, and helpful book, and I have long ago lost count of the number of copies I bought second-hand and gave to the many survivors I have had the privilege to work with over the years.
