"We passed the school, where children strove..."

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

~Emily Dickinson

"Happy New Year French-Style!"

" I Measure Every Grief I Meet..."

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes – 
I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long – 
Or did it just begin – 
I could not tell the Date of Mine – 
It feels so old a pain – 

I wonder if it hurts to live – 
And if They have to try – 
And whether – could They choose between – 
It would not be – to die – 

I note that Some – gone patient long – 
At length, renew their smile –  
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil – 

I wonder if when Years have piled –  
Some Thousands – on the Harm –  
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –  

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve – 
Enlightened to a larger Pain –  
In Contrast with the Love –  

The Grieved – are many – I am told –  
There is the various Cause –  
Death – is but one – and comes but once –  
And only nails the eyes –  

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –  
A sort they call "Despair" –  
There's Banishment from native Eyes – 
In sight of Native Air –  

And though I may not guess the kind –  
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –  

To note the fashions – of the Cross –  
And how they're mostly worn –  
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –

"A Question Worth Contemplating..."

 

"I am a parent twice bereaved.
In one thirteen-month period I lost
my oldest son to suicide 

and my youngest son to leukemia.

Grief has taught me many things
about the fragility of life
and the finality of death.
To lose that which means the most to us
is a lesson in helplessness
and humility and survival.

After being stripped of any illusions
of control I might have harbored,
I had to decide
what questions were still worth asking.

I quickly realized that the most obvious ones --
Why my sons? Why me? --
were as pointless as they were inevitable.
Any appeal to fairness was absurd.

I was led by my fellow sufferers,
those I loved and those who had also
endured irredeemable losses,
to find reasons to go on.

Like all who mourn
I learned an abiding hatred
for the word "closure,"
with its comforting implications
that grief is a time-limited process
from which we will all recover.

The idea that I could reach a point
when I would no longer miss my children
was obscene to me and I dismissed it.

I had to accept the reality that
I would never be the same person,
that some part of my heart, 

perhaps the best part,
had been cut out
and buried with my sons.

What was left?
Now there was a question worth contemplating."

-- Gordon Livingston, MD

"Calling My Children Home..."

"Calling My Children Home"
performed by Emmylou Harris

Those lives were mine to love and cherish,
To guard and guide along life's way
Oh God, forbid that one should perish
That one, alas, should go astray

Back in the years with all together,
Around the place we'd romp and play
So lonely now and oft' times wonder,
Oh, will they come back home some day

I'm lonesome for my precious children,
They live so far away
Oh, may they hear my calling...calling...
and come back home some day

I gave my all for my dear children
Their problems still with love I share,
I'd brave life's storm, defy the tempest
To bring them home from anywhere

I lived my life my love I gave them,
to guide them through this world of strife,
I hope and pray we'll live together,
In that great glad hereafter life

I'm lonesome for my precious children,
They live so far away
Oh may they hear my calling...calling...
and come back home some day

"Within Two Weeks..."

"Within two weeks following the death of a loved one, a griever has been pretty well isolated. People don't know what to say or do. So they do nothing."

The Grief Recovery Handbook:...

~John W. James and Frank Cherry 

 

A door opens to me.
I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.

~Antonio Porchia

"His Life Before Children..."

My life before children

I don't really remember.

I've heard references to it,

but I really don't remember.

~John Malkovich

"It's So Curious..."

 

"It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."

~Colette

"The Form Of The Waker..."

"Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless.
If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker."

~Antonio Porchia

"My Grown Up Christmas List..."

"My Grown Up Christmas List"

Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you
With childhood fantasies

Well, I'm all grown up now
And still need help somehow
I'm not a child
But my heart still can dream

So here's my lifelong wish
My grown up Christmas list
Not for myself
But for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas list

As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely
Wrapped beneath a tree

But heaven only knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal
A hurting human soul

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas list

What is this illusion
called the innocence of youth
Maybe only in our blind belief
can we ever find the truth

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, oh
This is my grown up Christmas list
This is my only life long wish
This is my grown up Christmas list

"My Grown Up Christmas List"
performed by Jane Monheit

"Fly, Fly Little Wing..."

Fly, Fly Little Wing

Fly, fly little wing
Fly beyond imagining
The softest cloud, the whitest dove
 

Upon the wind of heaven's love
Past the planets and the stars
Leave this lonely world of ours
Escape the sorrow and the pain
and fly again

Fly, fly precious one
Your endless journey has begun
Take your gentle happiness
Far to beautiful for this
 

Cross over to the other shore
There is peace forevermore
But hold this mem'ry bittersweet
Until we meet

Fly, fly do not fear
Don't waste a breath, don't shed a tear
Your heart is pure, your soul is free
Be on your way, don't wait for me
 

Above the universe you'll climb
On beyond the hands of time
The moon will rise, the sun will set
But I won't forget

Fly, fly little wing
Fly where only angels sing
Fly away, the time is right
Go now, find the light

Fly, Fly Little Wing
written by Jean-Jacques Goldman and Phil Galdston 
performed by Celine Dion

"After A Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes..."

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

~Emily Dickinson