The Song of Grief
A little over six months into this journey, I find myself trying to negotiate a sort of uneasy truce with the heartache of losing my son. I am realizing grief will be with me for a lifetime, and I feel like I’m closing in on a vision of how to carry it. On my best days, I let it sing to me, sweet memories of his life and essence that draw me closer to him and to the Savior.
©2019 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Ines Alvarez Fdez on Unsplash
I think that as the time goes by
I feel your absence more.
The stark finality of it
grows harder to ignore.
Your death has settled in on me,
an ever–present weight,
a loss quite unrelenting
as I strive to navigate
the waters of this voyage,
the shifting tide of tears,
the wave that crests and crashes…
yet never disappears.
(I understand this cycle will
continue through the years.)
My soul is seeking comfort
in small and simple ways.
I reach up for acceptance.
I hope for brighter days.
I sense an age-old rhythm…
some inborn song of grief…
that calls to me through memory
in notes of sweet relief.
The weight of loss (an anchor now)
holds me…upholds Belief.
∞§∞
“Grief is a burden but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.”
–Sarah Dessen
“She was no longer wrestling with grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.”
–George Eliot
The George Eliot quote is what I’m working toward. Grief is a product of love; it is love with no place to go, which means I already carry it (with my son) in my heart, where it is created. Peace comes when I just let it be, when I give grief its place without fear or judgment, reminding myself that love…in any form…is beautiful. And opening myself to that love brings me closer to the One who is the source of it.
If this poem resonates with you, you might enjoy Reflections and Reminders.
More of my poems about death, loss and grieving can be found here.
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Tags: death, grieving, living with grief, loss of a child, mourning, surviving grief