The Healing Journey

October 19, 2023

Since the beginning of time, humans have told stories, heroic stories, tragic stories, personal stories to explain great truths, and millennia later we are the same. The power of stories is considerably greater than abstract philosophizing, which is why great poets such as Homer, Dante and Shakespeare have endured.

The acclaimed psychiatrist, author and Harvard professor Robert Coles wrote a book titled, “The Call of Stories” in which students consider how their lives have been influenced by novels and tales.

Stories were fundamental to Coles throughout his career. In medical school, one of his mentors told him, “The people who come to see us bring us their stories. They hope they can tell them well enough so that we understand the truth of their lives. They hope we know how to interpret their stories correctly. We have to remember that what we hear is their story.”

The same is true for those of us who are grieving. We want people to listen to our stories. We have so many stories to tell. Not just stories of loss, but stories of love and courage and perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds. These are the stories that keep our lost loved ones alive, and equally important, listening to the stories of others consoles us and offers us the assurance that we are not alone in our struggles and that we, too, can persevere. When someone who is hurting tells you their story, listen with an open and compassionate heart because it is a sacred experience that is as old as humanity.

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