My favorite book on grief is "Lament for a Son," by Nicholas Wolterstorff. He does a masterful job at describing the raw pain of grief. This is how he describes the pain of the death of his 25 year old son who died in a mountain-climbing accident:
"When we gather now there's always someone missing, his absence is present as our presence, his silence is as loud as our speach. When we are all together, we are not all together. It is the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us-never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, nerver to embrace us as he leaves for school, never to see his brothers and sister marry. All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death. One small misstep and now this endless neverness."
That names it. That is the pain. That is the raw, raw pain of grief. The neverness of death is what brings pain to the depth of our being.
No comments:
Post a Comment