Today is Julian’s 13th Angelversary. Does that make me an expert on grief? Sometimes it sure feels like it. But if you asked me to summarize my experience of grief and what’s important about moving forward after loss, I’d point you to the work of contemporary Scottish poet Donna Ashworth.
Her latest book Wild Hope (buy it!) includes many poems that touch on the painful and hopeful sides of loss, but this one is my favorite. In just one paragraph, she captures so many of the key things I’ve learned about grief in these 13 years:
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LOVE CAME FIRST by Donna Ashworth
You don’t move on after loss, but you must move with. You must shake hands with grief, welcome her in, for she lives with you now. Pull her a chair at the table and offer her comfort. She is not the monster you first thought her to be. She is love. And she will walk with you now, stay with you now, peacefully. If you let her. And on the days when your anger is high, remember why she came, remember who she represents. Remember. Grief came to you, my friend, because love came first. Love came first.
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Sometimes, we need a poet to tell us something as counterintuitive as, “You must shake hands with grief, welcome her in, for she lives with you now. Pull her a chair at the table and offer her comfort.”
We read that, and we want to resist! We think, surely the poet isn’t talking to us, the bereaved? Wait… we’re being asked to offer comfort to our grief?” Yes, says the poet. Yes, says the 13-year-bereaved mom.
Yes, that is what we must do. Not because grief needs our comfort, but because we need to stop fighting it in order to heal. We must acknowledge that grief lives with us now. We can dwell in our sadness, or we can move forward with this loss into a hopeful future. We can wallow in what’s lost, or we can celebrate the love we had.
Sometimes, we need a poet to help us remember what’s most important: we feel grief because we first felt LOVE. “Grief came to you, my friend, because love came first. Love came first.”
creating “new normal” 