Tears Make Things Grow
Yesterday morning, I stepped outside my home and noticed dew on the rose bushes planted in my Grandma Rose’s memorial garden. It was if small “tears’ were resting on the bushes’ leaves. With spring approaching, I know the roses will soon bud and bloom into fragrant delights. But, for now, they are dormant, still and green, collecting droplets of dew.
Grief is like a winter rose.
Quiet.Still. Resting in tears.
Most of us have lived once, twice or perhaps even more often in that transitional place of grief—that “fuzzy-headed place” that makes us feel as if we are in a different world. That place that makes us a passive observer of life, rather than an active traveler.
Grief demands that we lean gently into our days and fall softly into our nights.
It forces us to navigate in a new way. And it allows all of the other deaths in our lives to show up and stand before us, demanding attention.
Grief causes us to cling to our memories of loved ones like a spring bud to a stem.
Oh, how I wish I knew about grief counseling when I said goodbye to my grandma. Her death happened during finals week of winter quarter of college. Because of the physical distance from family and how young I was, I walked mostly alone through my journey of grief.
It took months of deep inner work to grieve the death of my grandmother.
The next spring, I bloomed into a rose of a different color, a color that was more kind, accepting and with a different perspective on life.
Grief is not something you need to walk through alone. There are free local Hospice counselors and many resources on Grief Expert David Kessler’s grief.com website. Please know that there are people who are here to hold your hand as you walk through grief.
I wish I had known this in my 20s. I may have made me fell a lot less alone.
