TheBanyanTree: Pieces of memories....

[Sachet]

Ah, but Laura, you are handling everything so perfectly right. I admire 
your courage and sigh in empathy that you have to face clearing away her 
things so soon. We didn't have the time constraints that you and Larry 
do, so Scotty and I shoved my dad's stuff away in storage and couldn't 
bear to go through it all for over a year. We cried and grieved all over 
again when we did finally manage to sift through the memories of a 
lifetime.

You are so right about having to push it all away so you can function. 
You are giving hands to your grief though. Giving the gift of your time, 
sorting through her things with hands of love, gentle consideration and 
sincere respect. Matt and Rob will learn much of how you show love for 
someone even after that person has left this earth. You honor her, greatly.

That's the thing I'm learning about grieving. It's what it needs to be 
for all of us at different times in our lives, as we let it.

Thinking of you with love and prayers....

...Sachet



Laura wrote:

>On 15 Jul 2004 , Sachet made this statement:
>
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>>Some would say that grieving is a passing stage. All neat and tidy,
>>tucked away. But there are those of us that would disagree. Because
>>every great once in awhile, we know a different reality. So today I am
>>embracing, instead of pushing away, all the feelings of loss, sorrow &
>>pain. 
>>    
>>
>
>We are preparing for a week away.  Not for vacation, but to clear out the 
>house of a woman who was the center of our family.  For months, we have 
>been pushing away the loss, sorrow, and pain.  This week we will confront 
>them again, and keep trying to push them away.  It will be much harder 
>this week than usual, touching the things she loved, selling them, giving 
>them away, throwing them out.  If we don't fight these feelings, we will 
>lose this battle, and not be able to do the work we *must* do.  So we 
>will fight them, and push them aside, and do our work.
>
>Later, much later, when the siblings and relations and lawyers are all 
>done, and all evidence of the life that was lived is gone - dead and 
>buried like the body that housed the soul, we will grieve.
>
>There will be mementos of course.  The painting she bought in Belize, the 
>wall hangings she got in China.  The books she loved that we will adopt.  
>The painting of my husband and his sister as children, done by a neighbor 
>who emigrated from China, and thought the little pink children were so 
>beautiful.
>
>But these things are not *her*.  They only revive memories which live 
>within us anyway.  They are not a center around which we can revolve.
>
>We have another family, my extended family.  We were a nuclear family 
>revolving around two centers, swinging happily in an elliptical orbit 
>around the two, until March, when one of our centers disappeared, and now 
>we swing wildly, off kilter, wobbling around our single center.  
>Eventually, our lives will settle down, and our orbit stabilize.  Then 
>the loss, sorrow and pain will sneak back in, and we will stop fighting 
>it.  We will grieve.
>
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