A recent exercise in dealing with grief suggested that we write grief a letter. The purpose is to face your grief, giving it a personality and telling it what you think about it.  As I completed this assignment, I wondered, what if grief wrote us a letter? What would it want us to know? What would it ask?  My letter to grief came back with a reply.

Hello,

I am here. The Universal plan brought me here and I know you don’t like me. I know I cause you angst. I know I am the reason you cry at night, scream in the morning and have so many thoughts of deep doubt. I know how tired you are from my presence. I know how hard you wish I would leave.

But I’m not leaving. I’m here to stay. If you find yourself in a dark spot, don’t blame me. Stop and be quiet, take a deep breath and a moment to ponder…

Are your thoughts, your actions aligned with truth? The real raw truth that only your soul knows. Not the truth that your broken heart is telling you or the muddled truth of your brain. Have you listened to the whispers of your soul?

Are your thoughts, your actions aligned with kindness. Are you treating yourself with the tenderness to which a shattered life deserves? Concentrating on nourishing your soul with solitude and reflection rather than distractions and avoidance?

Are you filling your days with small moments of things that once brought you joy or are you replacing everything with something new, something shiny, something that cannot relate to the you before I arrived.

These are the ponderings I ask of you. The answers can become actions to ease the intensity of my being. I am grief. I am the other side of love. Don’t mistake me for anything else.

Don’t mistake me for anger. The anger to which arrives through despair or impatience. Anger will make you scream of the injustices thrown upon you, insinuating you have been betrayed. It can not speak of the whole truth for anger has only one side.

Don’t mistake me for fear. The fear to which arrives through insecurity or lack of faith. Fear will cast shadows over the chance of joy, holding you back from opening the door to opportunity. It can not see the future, for fear only knows of the past.

I am grief. I am the other side of the love you hold. I am the tallyman of your heart; your broken heart that I will help reshape. I am not the enemy.  I am merely the bittersweet continuation of love after its original form has left.

                                                                                                                                            ~Grief