DEATH IS NOT THE END

“The reality is that you will grieve forever.
You will not get over the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it.”

-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

I was thinking about my family this morning. Of all the losses we’ve endured. And how, by the grace of God, we’ve survived them, with more strength and with more faith than we ever imagined we’d need.

But that’s the thing about loss, isn’t it? It comes unbidden into our lives and changes us. And it should. Because we won’t be the same after their last breath. We’ll grow into our new skin, stronger and with renewed faith or we’ll languish in anger and agony. Only one of those choices leads to peace.

I pray that every grief journey we experience in our lifetimes strengthens our faith in things unseen and ends in a peace that goes beyond our understanding. For death is truly not the end, we will see them again.

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She lost her daughter then her sister.

He lost his mom and dad.

They lost each other.

She lost her home in the storm.

He lost himself in the bottle.

Loss is part of the currency of this life,

paid in heartbreak and in pain,

with agony and with tears.

And all we can do is move through it.

Shoulder the heaviness it leaves us.

Allow it to find its place within us.

So we can go on.

For it’s loss that teaches us, my child,

just how heavy absence truly is,

and how strong we have

to become to carry it.

JN Fenwick (© 2017-2022)

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