FACES OF GRIEF: Stories of Surviving Loss and Finding Hope
What does the face of grief look like? I pondered this question one day as I walked a stretch of sand along the Atlantic Ocean, scanning the faces I passed, wondering if I could detect the vacant look of loss. Was grief lurking, hidden by a bright smile? Or would it scream at me with a silent look of sorrow, staring into nothingness despite the sea of humanity stretched in front of it? And then, in the stark sunlight, the epiphany almost blinded me. Every person within my view had walked grief’s pathway or would walk it at an unknown point in the future. No one is immune. No one can escape the slings of sorrow unless one refuses to love, unless one refuses to care about another person. Ten years ago, ten days ago, or tomorrow, all of us don the face of grief. How deeply its arrows injure us, how long it takes to recover, or how we look after the broken pieces of our lives are mended into a changed being is individual and personal. But we all travel the journey, and we are transformed by it.
As the sun began to set on my walk, casting shadows on the sand, a second wave of insight washed over me. Every person within my sight would someday die. Untold numbers of beach walkers who had touched the grains of sand under my feet had died. And all those who would sink their feet into sea-softened sand tomorrow, ten days from now, and ten years from now, would share the same fate. We are all sojourners on earth; all of us are just passing through this life.
Profound thoughts? No. But they helped me put in perspective my own sorrow and the sorrow of the 20+ people I interviewed for FACES OF GRIEF. Hearing their tragic stories of loss saddened me, and I wondered how I would ever convey them in a way that lifted readers up instead of dragging them into deeper despair over their own losses. I knew I had to communicate more than the strength and courage with which those who had shared their stories had faced their grief, so I was seeking not only solace but also wisdom that day as I focused on the faces I passed. With the mindfulness of the transience of life came a more important reminder: Life doesn’t end on earth. When our loved ones—and we ourselves—take our last breath of earthly air, we are transformed for a new life. As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once wrote, “Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon.”
As the sun began to set on my walk, casting shadows on the sand, a second wave of insight washed over me. Every person within my sight would someday die. Untold numbers of beach walkers who had touched the grains of sand under my feet had died. And all those who would sink their feet into sea-softened sand tomorrow, ten days from now, and ten years from now, would share the same fate. We are all sojourners on earth; all of us are just passing through this life.
Profound thoughts? No. But they helped me put in perspective my own sorrow and the sorrow of the 20+ people I interviewed for FACES OF GRIEF. Hearing their tragic stories of loss saddened me, and I wondered how I would ever convey them in a way that lifted readers up instead of dragging them into deeper despair over their own losses. I knew I had to communicate more than the strength and courage with which those who had shared their stories had faced their grief, so I was seeking not only solace but also wisdom that day as I focused on the faces I passed. With the mindfulness of the transience of life came a more important reminder: Life doesn’t end on earth. When our loved ones—and we ourselves—take our last breath of earthly air, we are transformed for a new life. As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once wrote, “Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon.”
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