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9-11
United in Courage & Grief |
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9-11
United in Courage & Grief |
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Grief is the most
patient and persistent of all of life's companions.
It is an ancient,
universal power that links all human beings together.
These collected quotes, some written centuries ago, some by experts in the field, some by those who have experienced loss & grief and survived are arranged in a specific sequence. The quotes are arranged starting with the grief response to loss, then entering the transition phase before reaching quotes on healing.
Not a day passes over the earth but men and women
of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble
sorrows.
Feeling Grief
Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,
smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,
sweeps you up into its darkness,
where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,
only to be thrown out on an unknown beach,
bruised, reshaped...It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises,
and the mettle of rebirth.It returns life to the living dead.
It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue...Grief will make a new person out of you,
if it doesn't kill you in the making.
What is grief compared with physical pain? Whatever fools may say, the body can suffer twenty times more than the mind. The mind has always some power of evasion. At worst, the unbearable thought only comes back and back, but the physical pain can be absolutely continuous.
Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours if it with no let-up for a moment. Thought is never static; pain often is….Is it not yet enough?
Deep sobs -
That start beneath my heart
and hold my body in a grip that hurts.
The lump that swells inside my throat
brings pain that tries to choke.
Then tears course down my cheeks -
I drop my head in my so empty hands
abandoning myself to deep dark grief
and know that with the passing time
will come relief.
That though the pain may stay
There soon will come a day
When I can say her name
and be at peace.
Pain & Suffering
Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.
But with it comes the joy of a single, caring act. With it comes the honor of participating in a generous process in which one rises each day and does what one can. With it comes the simple, singular grace of being an instrument of Love, in whatever form, to whatever end.
Not Grieving
An ungrieved loss remains forever alive in our
unconscious, which has no sense of time.
Opportunity in Adversity
Adversity often produces an unexpected opportunity.
Look for it ! Appreciate and utilize it! This is difficult to do if
you're feeling sorry for yourself because you're
faced with adversity.
Journey through Grief
To find a safe journey through grief to growth
does not mean one should forget the past. It means that on the journey
we will need safe pathways so that remembrance, which may be painful, is
possible.
You need to face the pain and the fear and walk through the Grief.
Grief is a journey, often perilous and without
clear direction, that must be taken. The experience of grieving cannot
be ordered or categorized, hurried or controlled, pushed aside or ignored
indefinitely. It is inevitable as breathing, as change, as love. It may
be postponed, but it will not be denied.
Grief has a quality of healing in it that is very deep because we are forced to a depth of emotion that is usually below the threshold of our awareness.
When an emotional injury takes place, the body begins a process as natural as the healing of a physical wound. Let the process happen. Trust that nature will do the healing. Know that the pain will pass, and, when it passes, You will be stronger, happier, more sensitive and aware.
We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it in full.
I knew that… the full acceptance of the finality of loss, and all the pain that goes with it, need not diminish life but could five it a new quality of fulfillment. I also knew that this could not be achieved without going through the agonies of grief and mourning.
If it were possible for us to see further than our knowledge extends and out a little over the outworks of our surmising, perhaps we should then bear our sorrows with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new, something unknown, has entered into us. The more patient, quiet and open we are in our sorrowing, the more deeply and the more unhesitatingly will the new thing enter us, the better shall we deserve it, the more will it be our own destiny.
After a stormy period of mixed feelings of prolonged
sadness, there comes a calm.
After we become convinced that we are at the
very brink of eternal despair, or fear, or guilt, or sadness, we are given
a reprieve. We have a breathing space that eventually leads to whole days
that have personal value and offer us the opportunity for affection.
Then we recognize that no period of misery is
endless and unrelenting; it is instead, changeable.
Piece by piece, I reenter the world.
A new phase, a new body, a new voice.
Birds console me by flying, trees by growing,
dogs by the warm patch they
leave on the sofa.
Unknown people merely by performing their motions.
It's lie a slow recovery from a sickness, this
recovery of one's self.
He'd begun to wake up in the morning with something
besides dread in his heart.
Not exactly happiness, not eagerness for a new
day,
but a kind of urge to be eager,
A longing to be happy.
Grief Returns
Time does restore to us our quiet joy in
the spiritual presence of those we love,
so that we learn to remember without pain,
and to speak without choking up with tears.
But all our lives we will be subject to sudden
small reminders
which will bring all the old loss back, overwhelmingly.
… One thing I do
Know is that after years grief brings a pang
As terrible almost
As that first rending. Death, where love's been
strong,
Can always make you feel entirely lost
Or so it does with me. Time does not heal,
It makes a half-stitched scar
That can be broken and you feel
Grief as total as in its first hour.
When it seems that our sorrow is too great
to be borne,
let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted
into which our grief has given us entrance, and
inevitably,
we will feel about us, their arms and their understanding
Living with Grief
Grief
is a powerful, universal feeling, but it is survivable.
Great joys make us love the world. Great sadnesses make us understand the world.
All I know from my own experience is that
the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was
we had to lose. It means that we had something worth grieving for. The
ones I'm sorry for are the ones that go through life
not knowing what grief is.
I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.
To live is to suffer,
to survive is to
find some meaning in the suffering.
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