Sorrow, Grief, and Gratitude: It’s All about the Heart

I haven’t been feeling well today, so I have taken in more news than I like to or than I normally do. Wow! I won’t be continuing to do that. No, I do not stick my head in the sand. I do read some news, but I don’t need news to inform my heart or my days. In addition, a relatively young man I know died in a swimming accident a few days ago, within the last week two elderly neighbors died, and I have been at the funeral parlor over the past week visiting their family members. Sorrows, but sorrow is part of life.

Wallowing in it is not, and I don’t say that lightly because I feel things intensely. I deal with sorrow proactively. I try. How?

If I am responsible to myself, care for myself in a healthy way, then I will hear and heed my heart. I will, as my mother used to tell me, follow the dictates of my heart. For me, that means living my core Self, who I have come to know as Discovery. My mission, then, means that I must be involved with discovering and helping others to discover — pretty simple, really, as it should be. Have you come to really know yourself?

If, then, I am working in the business of my Self as Discovery, I am involved with and caring for others. If I am respecting myself, loving myself, then I am free to love others. That is the proactive stance in grief: to know that I have connected with and cared for others — to know that I have loved them through living my life purpose that sets me in a special relationship to each one who I encounter.

A practical example is when we had to make the decision to put our old puppy down. I had done everything possible to love her and care for her, including carrying her 55 or so pounds up and down the steps so that she could be by us. When that time came, it hurt and I agonized and I wept, but the grief was not crushing, life-stopping. And showing true love to others — creatures or people — allows us to celebrate our relationships, allows us to value the life of others because we loved them. If we do anything short of loving others, it’s awfully damned hard to celebrate life. Death or separation, then, acts as a dark canvas that allows the brightness of the energy of life of others to shine.

I can celebrate that life, then. I still speak to those who are not here physically any more from time to time, believing that their spiritual energy, that unique essence, continues and is sensitive when called on. At least that’s the way it works for me.

The alternative to this is not so great. If folks are miserable because they are living egoic lives and always feel like something is missing, then when someone or something leaves the physical plane they feel the emptiness even more. At that point, they lose the advantage of healthy grief that brings us back to the blessing that the departed are to us; they replace grief with unhappiness, discontent, and further self-doubt and sometimes self-loathing.

​I value looking back in love and appreciation for those who blessed my life. Yes, I grieve, but far beyond that, I celebrate with gratitude those who have blessed my life.