Finding Comfort in Grief

"Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making."- Stephanie Ericsson

I came across this quote and as I read the words my eyes filled with tears and said, "Yes, exactly! This...this is how I feel right now. It's been almost four weeks in a world without J. I'm a new person, changed in ways I never thought possible. I feel battered, bruised, stripped of my skin, raw. Seeing as I'm still breathing, then I suppose the brutal force of grief hasn't killed me.

Another quote:

"They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies." — William Penn

I cry reading these words because they are so true. Many times J and I vowed to love each other forever, always and into eternity, beyond death. He told me that he would still love me even when he was dead. He'd miss me as much as I'd miss him. Love is a force of nature, equal to any hurricane, tidal wave, tornado or earthquake. When you're caught up in it, your world changes, you change. When death steals your loved one from you, you're equally as stunned, shocked and devastated in the aftermath, looking around at a new, alien world. Nothing is ever the same again.

One more quote:

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." - Washington Irving

This moves me to tears as well. It also brought me to an "a-ha" moment. I confess, mostly due to all the horrors I've survived and how I was raised, that I've always seen tears as a sign of weakness. They marked a person as weak, unable to deal with life, or the trials of life, whatever cause or reason for the tears. I find it hard to put it into any better words.

Reading these words through eyes freshly glazed with grief, a mind emptied yet full of words and emotions, I feel the sacredness, the power, the grief and the unspeakable love he speaks of. Every tear that leaves its trail upon my face is full of the sacred bond J and I shared, full of the power of our love for one another, full of my pain and grief, full of memories of our time together.

A quote from my own mind:

"Grief leaves its mark in eyes full of shadows, once filled with light. It leaves its mark on the face in a trail of unending tears. Grief leaves its mark deepest upon the heart." --Karen Bishop