
What Grief Can Teach Us
(Read in :03)“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.”~Unknown
What can we gain from knowing grief?
I dug deeply for words of healing in my own bookish way. I found an incredible commencement speech by Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook. She spoke of the sudden, unexpected death of her husband and what she learned through grieving his loss. I hope you’ll take some time to read it here. Her powerful wisdom was born in pain.
In Sandberg’s words, “The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives.” She also learned “when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again.”
Four things we can learn from grief
- We need to be grateful right now. Don’t wait for the shock of a loss to be thankful and appreciative of the people in your life. Realize that every day, every moment, and every person in your life is precious.
- To say what you want to say today. Don’t assume you’ll have the chance to tell someone you love them next time you see them, tell them now! On a personal note, I’ve always been thankful that the last words I ever said to my dad were “I love you.”
- Tomorrow is not promised. Life can and sometimes does turn on a dime. Don’t take anything for granted. It sounds corny but it’s important to make every day count.
- Life does go on and it must. It seems impossible when we lose someone we love. It’s important to know that it’s true life will never be the same but it should serve as a reminder to make the most of the life we do have. The greatest honor we can give someone we loved and lost is to live our life to the fullest. We become strong again if we continue our journey to becoming the best possible version of the person our maker created us to be.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway
I am sorry that this family and your community had to experience this loss. Suicide is a long term solution to a short term problem – life always gets better, people come to help. And if it seems like it is too much to bear, ask other shoulders to help you. What a tough blog to write – you did it well!
The event has lain heavy on my heart all week. I hope to comfort and encourage.
Betty. Gail’s comment says it well “What a tough blog to write.” Suicide is a very haunting thing. Everyone associated with the person who suicided will go over and over events and words for a very long time and search for things they should have said and done. Every parent feels great pain when hearing of the suicide of a young person. It is so hard to understand and so painful to hear and endure. I do believe though that good things can come from bad events and this is one of the worst events a parent and family can experience. Even though I don’t know any of the people involved I too feel my heart ache at this news and when reading Betty’s well written blog. Doc Newbold.