Hi friends,
Sorry I have been silent. My father died recently.
It feels like the earth is ripped from under my feet.
I have been struggling with the grief, and how to support my family, and get us through in one piece.
Usually I try to make these newsletters quite lighthearted and uplifting, to share things I have found during the week to inspire you.
This is unfortunately not one of those weeks.
This week I am sharing anything I have found to cling on to I stumble through the waking nightmare of the last few weeks.
The grief of losing a loved one comes to us all at some point, unless we somehow shut ourselves off from love.
To love is to experience loss, for grief is the shadow of love.
I forget who said that.
I hope that if and when you experience loss, something here might ease your pain. In the meantime, hug your loved ones while you can.
A Reflection on an Autumn Day
I took up a handful of grain and letting it slip flowing through my fingers, I said to myself, ‘This is what it is all about’.
There is no longer any room for pretence.
At harvest time the essence is revealed The straw and chaff are set aside, they have done their job. The grain alone matters – sacks of pure gold.
So it is when a person dies the essence of their life is revealed. At the moment of death a person’s character stands out; Happy for the person who has forged it well over the years.
Then it will not be the great achievement that will count, nor how Much money or possessions a person has amassed.
These, like the straw and the chaff, will be left behind. It is what they have made of themselves that will matter.
Death can take away from us what we have, But it cannot rob us of who we are. ~ Ano
😞 Elizabeth Gilbert on Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief
"Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love."
🌱 Learning to Live with Grief and Pain
"That became actually perhaps the most pivotal point in the landscape of my life: that dance with despair, to see how we are called to not run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear. And that, if we can be fearless, to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn’t stay static. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it."
😢 Cry, Heart, But Never Break
“Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained? Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?”
❤️🩹 How to Live and Learn from Great Loss
“You don’t forget the person who’s gone; you can never do that, and you should not worry that you’re going to. But you fold them, and their loss, into the new person you become; and maybe that, in the end, is the greatest tribute any of us can make to anyone who has died.”
I hope you don't need these resources as I currently do, but if you do, I hope they help a little.
It felt like the world was ending.
Yet somehow it carries on.
Until next time.
Jamie
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💭 Grief
Thank you for writing this, Jamie. Wishing you and your family all the best.