HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 11/13/17

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“More than anything I have learned that we are all frail people, vulnerable and wounded; it is just that some of us are more clever at concealing it than others! And of course the great joke is that it is O.K. to be frail and wounded because that is the way the almighty transcendent God made people.” 

– Sheila Cassidy

What is this myth about being strong? About “keeping a stiff upper lip”? Of course, if we could choose, we’d like to do our weeping in a place where we won’t cast a pall of gloom over some bright social occasion.

But who was ever ostracized for giving way to tears? If you have to explain, explain. If people are impatient – that’s their problem. You have enough to contend with in your life right now without the extra burden of worrying about whether other people are going to be uncomfortable. If they’ve had a similar experience in their lives, they’ll know right away what’s going on. If they haven’t – yet- maybe when sorrow comes their way, they’ll be grateful for the permission to grieve that your tears have given them. You are not a stranger, acting strangely. You are a human being, acting like a human being.

In the map of the created world, the path to healing does not skirt around the edges of grief but goes right through the middle.