"Sometimes the long view is not what I need. I need this moment, without hostage to past or future, experienced for itself alone." Martha Whitmore Hickman from Healing After Loss
Healing After Loss is a book of daily meditations that covers a year. An old friend sent it to me shortly after Greg died and it resonated with me and I planned to start reading it daily, but as in most things over the past four months, my plans fell by the wayside.
I'm picking it up again and finding some help, but very little. This particular quote from today's reading found a home in my heart. The problem that I'm having with anything and everything - is wrapping my brain around concepts and non-factual information. (I understand the factual stuff. I just don't remember it very long.)
This book begins by saying in the introduction... "This process goes on for years - not days - or months."
I understand that. Truly, I do. I understand it with the hopelessness of someone with major health issues, in her 70th year.
What do you hold onto when you don't have years left to process the pain of losing a child? What's the incentive to get out of bed and do this - and feel this - another day? Where do you find hope for a better day? Where is the light?
I don't have a 'long view'. I won't live long enough to experience a 'long view'.
The good news is that I won't have to feel this pain for thirty more years. The bad news is that I can't find a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is sealed.
"Sometimes the long view is not what I need. I need this moment, without hostage to past or future, experienced for itself alone."
Where and how do I find those moments?
Healing After Loss is a book of daily meditations that covers a year. An old friend sent it to me shortly after Greg died and it resonated with me and I planned to start reading it daily, but as in most things over the past four months, my plans fell by the wayside.
I'm picking it up again and finding some help, but very little. This particular quote from today's reading found a home in my heart. The problem that I'm having with anything and everything - is wrapping my brain around concepts and non-factual information. (I understand the factual stuff. I just don't remember it very long.)
This book begins by saying in the introduction... "This process goes on for years - not days - or months."
I understand that. Truly, I do. I understand it with the hopelessness of someone with major health issues, in her 70th year.
What do you hold onto when you don't have years left to process the pain of losing a child? What's the incentive to get out of bed and do this - and feel this - another day? Where do you find hope for a better day? Where is the light?
I don't have a 'long view'. I won't live long enough to experience a 'long view'.
The good news is that I won't have to feel this pain for thirty more years. The bad news is that I can't find a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is sealed.
"Sometimes the long view is not what I need. I need this moment, without hostage to past or future, experienced for itself alone."
Where and how do I find those moments?
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