It's A Blessing Not To Be Alone

I Think About My Mother Every Day. But Usually The Thoughts Are Fleeting - She Crosses My Mind Like A Spring Cardinal That Flies Past The Edge Of Your Eye: Startling, Luminous, Lovely... Gone.

To Mourn Is To Wonder At The Strangeness That Grief Is Not Written All Over Your Face In Bruised Hieroglyphics. And It's Also To Feel, Quite Powerfully, That You're Not Allowed To Descend Into The Deepest Fathom Of Your Grief - That To Do So Would Be Taboo Somehow.

A Mother Is Beyond Any Notion Of A Beginning. That's What Makes Her A Mother.

I Wasn't Prepared For The Fact That Grief Is So Unpredictable. It Wasn't Just Sadness, And It Wasn't Linear. Somehow I'd Thought That The First Days Would Be The Worst And Then It Would Get Steadily Better - Like Getting Over The Flu. That's Not How It Was.

Faith Does Help Mourners Survive Their Loss, Some Studies Suggest; But I Imagine One Still Struggles.