Good Grief

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Grief is the deep sorrow you experience by someone's death. I've managed to wade my feet in the shallows and sometimes even kept my head below the sand when faced with tragic losses of life. Now, in my forties, the grief tsunami has hit. 

 

These emerging feelings might be because I have reached the halfway point of my life, and now I'm keenly aware of the absence of many loved ones and friends who left this earth along my journey. Whatever the reason, I've learned that grief never truly dissipates. The aching sadness ebbs, flows, rises,  and falls, but the missing never ceases. 

 

If misery loves company, then grief may love community. I remember learning the poem For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne in high school after the deaths of my friends. The poem taught me that loss is universal and familiar to everyone, even if not spoken out loud. 

 

Despite excruciatingly painful goodbyes, there is comfort in knowing humanity- all of humanity has heard or has rung that bell. It's within that refrain that we are one. Grief is part of our collective consciousness, and that knowingness anchors me. 

 

 For Whom the Bell Tolls

by

John Donne 1624

 

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

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To all of those who graced my life with theirs.