Unfillable shoes....
 

When a family member dies, the survivors are faced with the delicate task of caring for each other, filling in the space left vacant by the loved one.

Some things like filling out papers and attending to financial matters are self-evident. Others, like the degree of comfort and presence a bereaved person needs or wants, are difficult to judge, and it takes a while to get the balance right. It is important to recognize good intentions, and also to speak up, kindly, when the balance sways too far to one side or the other.

In this back and forth of who does best and most wisely for whom, the loved one's absence is keenly felt - other-wise, why would we be doing all this? But maybe the loved one's presence is here too - in the care we take of each other, in the tenderness with which we try to fill the unfillable shoes.

Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman

What a thread,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


When my Father died in 1996............

MY Uncle [his brother stayed at my home 3 days before the funeral]

My dad was from Northern Ireland [LondonDerry]

His Brother believed death was a celebration, tears were a private thing,,,,,,,,,,,,this meant i put up with joke telling and song for 3days prior to the funeral and 2 days after the funeral when he went home.

At first i was happy he was there with me..... even though believe it or not i had never met him before[ well i did but i was one year old]

I reached a point the night before the funeral where i felt like screaming at him for his jovial demenor.

After the funeral he hung around other family members allowing me to grieve in my own way. Travelling home together the day after the funeral he said...........you have a life time to grieve on your own.......................


But collectively as a family you only have a short time together to cellabrate a life ...............passed

It has taken many years to understand what he meant.............

I was angry with him for not allowing me to grieve at the intial point of my fathers death .............a time when i needed him [even though i didn'nt know him]

But with hindsight what he did was prepare me for the funeral................[i never cried, and as the youngest of nine children....i saw myself as the strongest]

I crumbled weeks after and have mourned for many years..............but my uncle Frankie............prepared me in his own Irish Catholic way...................where death is a celebration of life and politely speaking a PARTY [Something i still cant get my head around but it works for many people.......so who am i to say they are wrong]

What i did learn is............................when i want to express myself through grief in whatever way ..............i just do it...................i expect the right to to allow me to grieve..................................no ..................one now stops me.


David

bump because this message needs to be heard:grouphug:

David

Martha Whitmore Hickman also said,

"In the midst of the deepest winter, of the darkest night, what are we to do?

Acknowledge the cold and the dark, the mystery of an unknowable black ocean that seems to stretch into infinity...and then sing!

Or to put it another way, "It is better to light a candle than the curse the darkness."

One of the glories of human beings is their ability to venture, to see beyond the immediate scene, to raise a note of hope and risk in a sometimes foreboding world.

So may this New Year's Eve - this turning into the next year, this milestone which has its aura of sadness because I enter another year without my loved one - may this New Year's Eve be for me a time for music. And if I am able - later, if not now - may I hear in my heart the voice of my loved one lifted with my voice, to praise life, to hope for life, to join others on the circling globe in an "Alleluia," for the experiences we have shared and share even now, and for the way beyond time and death in which we are bound to one another in gratitude and love.

That is beautiful Alffe, thank you again!