The pandemic has claimed many lives along with our traditional ways of mourning. Death rituals go back to primitive times and often center around a community sending their lost member off to the next life. We find comfort in groups and solace in human touch, but Covid-19 has made that tricky, if not impossible.
The reality is once the ritual is over, the individuals are left to sort out their grief on their own. It is with this in mind that I wrote my book, “The Grieving Heart Collection of Poetry and Prose about Loss, Hope and Living” in order to encourage people to create their own process, to embrace it and then to ultimately move on from ones grief.
Following is the title piece from the book that best sums up my mission which is to bring some relief those who are suffering .
The Grieving Heart
The grieving heart is a heavy heart, for it bares the weight of a loss. It can feel like a broken heart which at times is angry, frightened and confused. The grieving heart requires special handling because it is so bruised but given time it will mend.
What is most important for the grieving heart to know is that it must be allowed time and space to grieve.
The grieving heart is a giving heart that can find ways to turn the pain into a means of affecting a positive future while honoring the loved one lost to them.
The grieving heart is a hopeful heart that one day we will find a cure or build the ballpark or break ground on a new museum; for the grieving heart knows no bounds to its creativity. It will put into words, pictures, paintings, songs, sculptures and dance – whatever it takes to remember their loved ones.
The grieving heart is so full of love, which is what causes it to hurt so much until it has had time to grieve and thus heal.
The grieving heart is everyone’s heart, from time to time. So, find your way to turn this loss into an action that will honor the one for whom you grieve today. Create a legacy of love for them that you can leave behind, and then when you are ready but not before its time, walk away from your grieving heart and do what honors the one you lost the most…LIVE YOUR LIFE.