Download - The Perfect Wisdom Web

Be Not Afraid GriefGrieving families often find comfort in makingconnections with other bereaved people. Part of it maybe the knowledge that those they are reaching out toknow what they are going through, and will be sensitiveto it; but part of it is also the satisfaction that comesfrom giving back after one has been on the receivingend of condolences and other forms of sympathy.Several months after the death of Merrill, whosestory I told in an earlier chapter, his wife, Kathy,traveled to another state to support a woman who hadjust lost her husband. Kathy told me later that insteadof reviving her pain, this experience helped her to putit in perspective.Sidney and Marjorie, another couple, lost their firstson when he was only five weeks old; the day after hewas buried, they took a severely abused foster childinto their home. Others wondered how they wouldcope, but Marjorie says the boy gave them an outletfor the love they would have gone on lavishing on theirbaby, had he lived.After Delf, a former teacher of mine, accidentally ranover his two-year-old son, killing him, he and his wifewent through their neighborhood from house to house,sharing their pain and grief. Some time later theybrought their child’s clothes and toys to a poor couplein their neighborhood who had a child the same age.188