“Get over it!” seems to be a deeply ingrained part of this culture. We seem to think that grieving has an end point, a stage at which we think it should be over. If we love someone we carry them with us. And that, as the poem below implies, is a joy and a privilege.
We don’t need to stop grieving! We only need to accept the grieving to know the joy of keeping that love and connection alive in our daily existence.
I know most of us don’t read poetry on a regular basis, but this ancient poem expresses how our love for the person gone resides within grief.
‘Tis a Fearful Thing
‘Tis a fearful thing
11th Century Poet
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.”
– Yehuda HaLevi