Saturday was another service to celebrate my brother Mark's life. This one was in Guelph.
The highlight for me was 13 year old Tara Jamieson singing the song she and her mother wrote:
Brothers
He'd prepared himself for the news
That death had come to gather you
But found he could not stop the pain
As it flooded back again
No relief, or so it seemed
From the harsh reality
That you are only in his memories
And to those memories he'll hold
To stories a thousand times retold
And though he knows them all by heart
He listens for his favourite part
And wonders will he ever
Lose the pain of losing a brother
He went to bed and finally slept
And though it wasn't morning yet
He woke up crying from the pain
As it flooded back again
Spared only briefly by his dreams
From the harsh reality
That you are only in his memories
And to those memories he'll hold
To stories a thousand times retold
And though he knows them all by heart
He listens for his favourite part
And wonders will he ever
Lose the pain of losing a brother
He heard some news that he thought he'd share And then remembered that you weren't there But in that moment he could see You smiling in his memories
And to those memories he'll hold
To stories a thousand times retold
And though he knows them all by heart
He listens for his favourite part
And hopes that he will never
Lose these memories of his brother
Yes he could tell them all forever
Precious stories of his brother
A part of me worries that I am still obsessing too much about Mark. But a part of me also knows grief cannot be rushed. It is my logical mind fighting with my emotional mind. I tend to want to just get over things.
I listened to a great book "Anti Cancer - a New Way of Life" by David Servan-Scheiber on the weekend on staying cancer free and stopping cancer if it has started. The theory is basically "healthy living" works. Eat lots of vegetables and limit sugar and processed foods. And of course - exercise. The authors' theory (and he is an MD) is we all have cancer cell present but it takes feeding with "bad" stuff to help them grow.
And healthy living prepares one for all the challenges we might face, including keeping us better able to endure the lengthy and often surprising turns that grieving takes. Patience when we need it most can seem so scarce!
ReplyDeleteOne of many sites that shows the pattern of grief is this:
http://www.cancersurvivors.org/Coping/end%20term/stages.htm
However, both lists of stages of grieving here seem to omit one of the key phases many of us face: guilt. We can be mistakenly overwhelmed by our "What if I had only..." thoughts.
It's so important for us to know that while all the feelings that may open in grief do not make sense, they MUST be befriended and allowed to accompany us for a time.
In a way, this is the key "immutable law" of moving through deep loss. We cannot push the river.
~ Kit W-P