My thoughts on the process of Grieving
by Wally Amos

How does one go about writing a positive article about grieving? It's a question I have been wrestling with for quite some time. Like everyone, I've had my share of grief. In 1994, my mother died. I thought I had the spiritual foundation to handle it. However, when I received the notice of her death, my body collapsed as if someone had taken all the air out of me. People often say, “You have to process grieving.” I discovered that grieving processes you.

On September 11, we all learned we could grieve for people we had never met. When I heard what had happened to the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon my body became numb and I began to shake and get chills. It was hard for any of us to comprehend and process such an occurrence. Grieving is a very emotional reaction that overwhelms us. Then, on September 30, my oldest sons, Michael and Gregory, lost their mother, who for months had lived with cancer. They both grieved in their own way. Yes, grieving is also very personal. The following has helped me deal with grieving. I hope it helps you.

I am standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she is a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, “There! She's gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined harbor. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There! She's gone!” there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”

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