The Healing Journey

July 6 2024

“The day will come when we will meet again, not just in memories, but face to face.”
– Author unknown

In his novel “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” author John Irving described grief as a gradual loss over time. He wrote: “When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time — the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes — when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever — there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.”

When someone we love dies, we cling to reminders of them that are all around us: in the garden, their greeting cards, their hobbies and their habits. They will be everywhere. Some people cling to these vestiges of a relationship and signs of their presence, while others can go to the extreme and try to sanitize their existence of any reminder that might be left behind.

However, there’s another way of looking at it. A long absence doesn’t necessarily mean all the memories are faded and slip into oblivion, forever gone. That’s the secular way of looking at the journey grief takes us on. So many people who have lost a loved one look to the future with hope because they are moving closer to an eternal reunion that was only temporarily interrupted. They no longer focus solely on the loss in this life. They look forward to being found again in the next life, and that should be a cause for extreme joy.

***