Grief

 

I've been thinking about grief lately.

Grief is such a personal thing. How we experience it. How we process it. How long it dominates our lives. The way it affects the rest our lives. Or doesn't.

No one knows grief exactly like someone else and yet it is a universal feeling.

Even animals seem to express and feel grief.

In the seasons of a life grief is more than the dying world of autumn or the dead world of winter. It is the hope that fills us with the first breaths of spring enriched by the fullness of summer and the richness of fall's bounty. Over time it slowly becomes the peaceful acceptance of winter lying beneath a frozen blanket and knowing there is life of some sort underneath.

In its first stages grief can feel unbearable and yet it is bearable. It is a glance into Pandora's box that overwhelms us with its vastness and mystery. It is finding emptiness in the midst of so much. It is coming to terms with the unthinkable, at least in momentary periods of glimpses of eternity.