Grief is such a serious thing. It breaks your life apart, it leaves you confused and powerless. Grief is pain beyond words; grief is a relentless force; grief will not yield the field without an enormous struggle. And yet, in the middle of all this emotional hardship, there often is a deep and resonant intuition saying "life goes on". And doesn't it also say "you will heal"? Is there something in our spirit that keeps us breathing, waiting for the daylight, ready (even against our will) to live again?

Surely, tears are inescapable at times of such grief - but what about laughter? Does it seem as if grievers know that both tears AND laughter will help us to keep going, to live again, and to enjoy life again some day? And - in time - we come to see laughter as an affirmation of our deceased loved one's life. We would not want to tell them, would we, that their life is the cause of unremitting sadness from this day forward? When you can, make your life ready for laughter - without guilt!

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Newsletter from Survivors After Suicide "97 issue. Culver City, CA
SOS of Dane County Newsletter July 2009