There are no magic potions or secret strategies to deal with grief but here is a selection of special quotations and poems that might provide some perspective, if not comfort.
1. Sorrow makes us all children again — destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.
3. Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.
4. Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
7. Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
There are some morinings I open up my e-mail and find your messages, open them up and find that the feature story you have posted is very significant to what is taking place in my life and the lives of those I care about. The most important thing…I learn, I grow, and I gain another tool to help others.
I am so glad to be of value to you.
In the children’s story “The Bluebird of Happiness”, a boy and girl make a journey to find the Bluebird of Happiness. Their first encounter is with the family members that had died, some they had never met. As they reluctantly continue the journey their Grandparents bestow a bit of wisdom about grief. I am unable to remember the exact verbiage but the idea is that whenever we think of those we lost, we bring them alive again.
This maybe a passage you could include with the above.
Once again I found you with words I needed. Lost my brother and father six weeks apart in 2008 and my mother just a month ago. Was wandering around my classroom this afternoon feeling bereft. Thought I’d be productive and wade through the emails. The e.e. cummings poem and your well-chosen quotes on grief are a help. I’ll be sharing them with my students, too. Thanks, Michael. I needed your clarity today!
Tracey – it’s a pleasure and honor to know I’ve been of service.