So This is Grief

This past week my pastor talked about being the kind of person who is able to receive honest feedback from the people in our lives. I stopped breathing at the thought of that. It scared me to death...

As a clinical counselor, I have been invited into the sacred ground of my client's souls. For a moment every week, they welcome me to exist in that secret place with them. I am honored when I realize that they are allowing me access into a solemn and spiritual territory. They are living with me as people who are open, vulnerable and receptive to someone giving them the honest feedback that my pastor had mentioned.

To allow another being to enter into that place takes a lot of courage.

To allow yourself to see yourself for what you really are takes even more courage.

I was in therapy these past several years as a requirement of my seminary's counseling program. It was altogether a terrifying and holy experience. I had shared things with my counselor that I had never told another living, breathing human being. I was allowing my counselor to access the space in my internal world that only previously existed as a silent dialogue between me and God.

That journey can be harrowing and lonely. It can, at times, feel hopeless.

It can feel very, very dark.

But in that darkness, I found new acquaintances. In that space, I believe now, we meet a part of ourselves, exiles that have been hidden away for so long...

Very recently, a good friend of mine became one of the people in my life willing to give me some honest feedback in the way that I had failed to show her love. I felt exposed. But the thing that was exposed was the very part of me that I realized I had been running away from for a long time. I met someone there, in that sacred, secret place that I usually allow no one to go to... until my friend's words caused me to look closer, to go into that dark corner.

I met Grief there. I am only now beginning to get to know her.

So this is Grief,

The friend I have been avoiding for so long.

Our conversations are painful and slow.

And She blanks from time to time.

From time to time She stops,

And is silent.

And She stares ahead as if in a memory.

I lose Her there.

I check my watch and take another sip of my coffee.

I glance over at the young passionates sitting beside us

And wish that I was out to coffee with somebody else.

Until again She stirs,

And takes a breath

And moves on.

I vow that I am never going to call Her again.

So this is Grief.

As She ponders,

As Her fingers twirl Her hair and Her glazed eyes

Stare out the dirty window,

The sun then hits Her in such a way that makes Her almost beautiful.

Grief, sitting in the sunlight of the cafe,

Staring out the dirty window.

My heart moves and I want to kiss Her.

I want to comfort Her.

I want to take away Her blackness and Her pain.

But all I can do is to sit and let Her be.

I let Her stop. I let Her say nothing.

I let Her remember what she remembers.

To love Her is to let Her be Her.

So this.

So this is Grief.