HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 3/18/19

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“Every aspect of life had become perilous to Dinah, and all she knew how to do was to hang on to her life exactly as it was, to let routine and necessity direct her days.”

-Robb Forman Dew

One effect of losing a loved one, particularly if death is sudden and unexpected, is that we become newly aware of the fragility of life. If this tragedy can befall us, what next? We can become fearful, almost paranoid. A mother whose child was killed in an auto accident tells me she cannot bear to have her other child come home later than she expected. “Call me if you’re going to be late. Even ten minutes. Please,” she tells him.

Our security in the world is threatened. Our inner lives are in turmoil. To follow methodically the patterns of the day may give us some sense of order so we will not break apart. 

Beyond that, we may feel that by sticking to our established ways, perhaps we will keep the fates from noticing us and be spared further unexpected terror. These are primal, irrational fears, but the loss we have gone through is not rational either.

Later, not now, we’ll have the energy and courage to cope with change.

I will live through these days the best I can, trusting that in time my spontaneity and energy will return.