ARTICLE


LIFE IS A GIFT by April K Boardman


Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin... Life can be truly hard, but it can also be wonderful, and it is a GIFT. What we do with that gift is up to us . I read a book about grief the other day, in it was a quote about loss and grief.


“Losing someone is like being handed knife, we can either grab it by the blade or the handle”


I could understand this having lost so many of my loved ones over the years and particu- larly recently when my much loved brother and my niece died within the space of 6 months, I could either hurt myself more by grabbing the “blade” or I could deal with my grief by grabbing the “handle”.


However. What does it mean to “deal” with grief or to “manage” grief? It certainly doesn’t mean that we should contain our pain and hide it away or pretend that our loss hasn’t happened. It doesn’t help to try and forget the person we lost or to try to carry on as those nothing has happened, keeping busy so that we avoid our pain and grief.


By doing that we are grabbing it by the blade, and burying the blade deep within us. Even- tually we will only hurt ourselves and others more by doing that. We have to accept that everyone copes with grief differently but if we take the handle rather than the blade, if we allow ourselves to honour the memory of the one we lost, if we celebrate their lives instead of just mourning the life they lost, we do the one we have lost justice. To remember their anniversaries, their birthday, their deaths is natural, those dates will be forever ingrained in our minds. We never forget someone we loved and still love, and the pain of their loss is always there, below the surface waiting to bubble up when we least ex- pect it. A song or a place, seeing someone that looks a little like them, brings their memory to the surface, like a whale emerging from the sea, we can’t ignore it and it is bigger than anything else that might be happening around us, but like a Whale emerging from the ocean, the memory of them should be treasured because it is a beautiful thing.


Think about it, it may seem a morbid thing to do, but when you die do you just want your loved ones to try to forget you? Do you want them to put away all pictures of you ? Do you want them to avoid doing the things they used to do with you? Do you want them to blame anyone or anything for your loss and their pain and live with anger and resentment in their hearts? Or is it rather that you want them to go on living, loving and enjoying and celebrating yours and their life as much as possible? Do you want them to remember you with a smile and to take pleasure in your memory whilst moving forward and meeting new people and making new happy memories? I know which version I want for my loved ones when I leave this life.


London & South East Connection - April/July 2017


Continued on page 33 3


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