One of the weird things about Facebook's news feed is that it doesn't stop when this occurs. It continues its stream of life as it happens. The happy and the sad. The delightful and the tragic. All of it flowing along in discordant juxtaposition.
Grief heightens your vision--a magnifying glass that zooms in on the incongruity of the happy and the unthinkable.
And we hate being left unable to resolve.
Living in the place where the world doesn't work. Where nothing fits anymore.
Donald Miller writes, "I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."
There is a "head part" to grief that can make us crazy. The knowledge that the world we live in is different than we believed it to be. And while the love of friends can help with the pain of the heart parts, the head part is largely dealt with alone. Don't let it make you crazy. Learn to be okay with the unokay. And know that eventually the magnifying glass rights itself, and the act of grief will loosen it's laser focus on the loss and begin to highlight the beautiful.
3 comments
Well said.
When my mother passed away, it was quite a difficult time. At night, I would sit and listen to a Peter Gabriel song that had touched me so deeply in 2004 - "I Grieve". It said it all and all so beautifully:
It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then
There's nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
It's just the way that you would tied in
Now there's no-one home
I grieve for you
You leave me
'so hard to move on
Still loving what's gone
They say life carries on
Carries on and on and on and on
The news that truly shocks is the empty empty page
While the final rattle rocks it's empty empty cage
And i can't handle this
I grieve for you
You leave me
Let it out and move on
Missing what's gone
They say life carries on
They say life carries on and on and on
Life carries on
In the people i meet
In everyone that's out on the street
In all the dogs and cats
In the flies and rats
In the rot and the rust
In the ashes and the dust
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
It's just the car that we ride in
A home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in
And life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Did I dream this belief?
Or did i believe this dream?
Now i can find relief
I grieve
Wow...good song... I've never heard it, but will have to chase it down...
Not surprising you'd heard it. You always were a "rocker chick." And RC's always know all the B sides.
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