Did you know that when little kids get lost in the woods they do something really smart? They find a snug place, curl up and sleep.
Adults tend to keep moving, keep trying to find their own way out. Kids wait for the grown-ups to solve the problem.
I learned this and so much more from a slim, beautiful memoir called Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. Braestrup is a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service, comforting people who have lost a loved one.
Nearly every page caught me with a startling truth: "Eventually, my heart--my fragile glass heart--would again be offered to the mortal hands of another man guaranteed to break it, one way or another, since that is the lunacy and loveliness of love."
Or an observation: "I can't think how many people I've had to tell about a death, how many people have that memory of me standing there, saying those words. It's really something, to be on the hinge of so many stories."
And especially this about moving past grief: "Then light your candles to the living. Say your prayers for the living. Give your flowers to the living. Leave the stones where they are, but take your heart with you. Your heart is not a stone."
http://www.amazon.com/Here-If-You-Need-Me/dp/B0030EG156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303145448&sr=8-1
Adults tend to keep moving, keep trying to find their own way out. Kids wait for the grown-ups to solve the problem.
I learned this and so much more from a slim, beautiful memoir called Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. Braestrup is a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service, comforting people who have lost a loved one.
Nearly every page caught me with a startling truth: "Eventually, my heart--my fragile glass heart--would again be offered to the mortal hands of another man guaranteed to break it, one way or another, since that is the lunacy and loveliness of love."
Or an observation: "I can't think how many people I've had to tell about a death, how many people have that memory of me standing there, saying those words. It's really something, to be on the hinge of so many stories."
And especially this about moving past grief: "Then light your candles to the living. Say your prayers for the living. Give your flowers to the living. Leave the stones where they are, but take your heart with you. Your heart is not a stone."
http://www.amazon.com/Here-If-You-Need-Me/dp/B0030EG156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303145448&sr=8-1
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment