Monday, April 10, 2006

the melancholy heart.

~I'm Free~
Author Unknown

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free;
I'm following the path God laid for me.
I took The hand when I heard the call;
I turned my back and left it all.
I could not stay another day,
To laugh, to love, to work or play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way;
I found that place at the close of day.
If my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss;
Ah yes, these things, I too, will miss.
Be not burdened with times of sorrow;
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life's been full, I savored much;
Good friends, good times, a loved one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief;
Don't lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me;
God wanted me now, and set me free.

* * * * *

The Stages of Grieving


1) Shock
Immediately following the death, it is difficult to accept the loss. A feeling of disbelief. During those first days there is a feeling of being-out-of-touch.

2) Emotional Release
The awareness of just how dreadful the loss is accompanied by intense pangs of grief.
In this stage a grieving individuals sleeps badly and weeps uncontrollably.

3) Panic
For some time a grieving person can feel in the grip of mental instability. They can find themselves wandering around aimlessly, forgetting things, and not being able to finish what they started. Physical symptoms also can appear -- tightness in the throat, heaviness in the chest, an empty feeling in the stomach, tiredness and fatigue, and headaches.

4) Guilt
At this stage an individual can begin to feel guilty about failures to do enough for the deceased, guilt over what happened or what didn’t happen.

5) Hostility
Some individuals feel anger at what “caused” the loss.

6) Inability to Resume Business-as-Usual Activities
The ability to concentrate on day-to-day activities may be severely limited. It is important to know and recognize that this is a normal phenomenon. A grieving person’s entire being – emotional, physical and spiritual, is focused on the loss that just occurred. Grief is a 100% experience.

7) Reconciliation of Grief
Balance in life returns little by little, much like healing from a severe physical wound. There are no set timeframes for healing. Each individual is different.

8) Hope
The sharp, ever present pain of grief will lessen and hope for a continued, yet different life emerges. Plans are made for the future and the individual is able to move forward in life with good feelings knowing they will always remember and have memories.

* * * * *

people living deeply have no fear of death.
-- anais nin

no one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humaneness.
-- hermann broch

we sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.
-- nathaniel hawthorne

* * * * *

dealing with the news, in conjunction with my own recent daily struggles, hasn't been easy at all. like I mentioned to my best friends last night, I would be torn up whenever friends of mine were speechless or just didn't know what to say while I was grieving. a part of me wanted to scream, what the hell, just say f*cking something already! but in this eleventh hour, in attempting to formulate the appropriate words, to tell someone whom I have loved more than anything but have more often than not opted not to express it, I find more empathy than ever before for those friends who knew not what to say. I don't have anything to say, I don't have the words that will come out right. everything I can think of sounds so trite and random. so what do you do? all my thoughts go out to the family, especially to him, and my heart remains melancholy.

* * * * *

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