On Grief
(I wrote this for a friend of mine who has recently lost a spouse, but, as I reach an age where the elders in my life--and even some friends--are starting to pass away, these thoughts are, sadly, more regularly on my mind. But take heart and read on!) I don't know anything about the author Jamie Anderson, but he wrote, “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” I think he is close to the truth of the matter, but we, as Christians, know that we may not have a passed loved one right here to give our love to, but we can store up all that love for later delivery to our loved ones, when we see them again in Heaven. How sad would our lives be if we had no one for whom we could grieve--no one who impacted our lives enough that their death would be a mournable loss