A msg from 2002

[barb0617]

I was just putting together a folder of readings for a cousin who has lost her son to an overdose.  This one was so powerful when I found it so many years ago and I thought it might be good to post it here today.
The Agony of the Loss of a Child
The loss of a child is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out onto an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.  The loss of a child means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time.  It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.  The loss of a child is three o'clock in the morning sweats and shakes that won't stop.  It is dreadful Sundays, and Mondays that are no better.  It makes you look for a face in the crowd, knowing full well that the face we want to see cannot be found in that crowd.  The loss of a child is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind and makes room for the phantasmagoric.  It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting, without saying a word.  The loss of a child makes what others think of you moot.  It shears away the masks of normal life and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth before propriety can stop you.  It shoves away family, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites address books for you.  The loss of a child makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk, right to their faces.  It tells the world that you are untouchable at the very moment when touch is the only contact that might reach you.  It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.  The loss of a child discriminates against no one.  It kills. Maims. And cripples.  It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises, and the mettle of rebirth.  It returns life to the living dead.  It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue.  It assures the living that we know nothing for certain.  It humbles.  It shrouds.  It blackens.  It enlightens. 

5/22/2002 webhealing.com
Author unknown

[Terry]

So true.

Thanks for sharing this, Barb. It really is the way we all feel but sometimes just can't find the words.

(((((Barb)))))

[barb0617]

Thanks, Terry. I was three years bereaved the first time - Jimmy- when this appeared on our forum. It confirmed the validity of my experience. I should report - I'm gratefully in a pretty good place now. Blessed to have daughter and son-in-law and 2 grandkids just around the corner, and they like being near.