A friend told me how he’d recently lost an ex-lover and dear friend. After the phone call, he had sat back on his couch and swore that he saw a piece of his heart float out of his body like smoke, then sail away through the open window into the hazy afternoon sunlight. Ever since, he has felt like he’s missing a piece of himself.
He asked me if I thought that time heals all wounds. As gently as I could, I shook my head no. The truth is that I’ve seen people fade after the death of a loved one until they, too, had disappeared.
However, I believe that, instead of fighting or battling grief, a mourner might fall into step with it. Walk only as long as you can bear it at first. Perhaps in the future, you can go a bit further. Talk to your grief. Remember the fun times. Cry over the regrets. Keep going, and, perhaps on a bright morning, you come to yourself and realize that you are actually dancing with your grief.
Grief will never go away, just like your loved one will never come back. But you can dance, slowly at first, then faster and freer than you once thought possible.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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