We have mourned enough …
We have shed tears for the one we loved and lived in the hollow they left behind.
We are leaping into grief as though we have embraced it as a form of recreation.
We are not what we have lost.
We are not what has been taken from us.
We are all too willing to embrace the void.
If you do not cherish what remains we all become as nothing.
You will be nothing.
We are not broken.
We are each as whole as we will ever be again
and in the end when we cease to be, we will all become memories.
“Sister Monica Joan” from the series “Touched by a Midwife” Series 7 episode 8.
Moving words.
When I first heard them I wondered at them.
At first glance they seemed uncaring.
Looking at them in the context of the story, where the group had lost one of their own and were now upset at the loss of a political leader, the words made more sense.
This old nun spoke of the loss of their beloved friend and colleague.
Now she is pointing out that they are turning grief into a hobby. They are becoming distraught at every death, even one of a political leader of another country. They have taken their personal loss and are adding that pain to everything in their lives.
She reminds them they are in danger of becoming grief. Of being willing to embrace the emptiness of grief. Of being lost in hopelessness.
It is tempting to do that when we lose one we love so dearly. But it is not our future. Our future is to live. Even as we attend to the pain of our loss, we are forced to continue living and completing the tasks we need to complete each day. Much as we want the world to stop, it continues and we are forced to run to catch it up.
But she reminds her colleagues that we are not what has been taken from us. We must allow ourselves to grieve and at times be immersed in it. But we do reach a point in our grief journey where we need to and are willing to acknowledge and hold precious what we still have.
Because if we do not hold precious what we still have we are nothing. Our lives have no meaning. No purpose. No direction.
Her final reminder is that grief may leave us feeling broken hearted but we are not broken. We are still capable of living and continuing. It may take a long time, but we are still able to survive.
We are still whole. As whole as we will ever be in our lives again. That wholeness probably looks quite different to the wholeness we experienced before our loss. But that wholeness is still whole. And we reach a point when we need to continue living.
We live with our memories and in time, we also will become someone else’s memories.