Ponderings on grief

I have been musing wordlessly on this for several weeks, mulling over Stan's untimely death and all it means to those who love him, wanting to express, to clarify, to organise my cluttered thoughts. Grief has been likened to a tangled ball of wool, and so it is. These are just a few of those untangled thoughts. The rest, leaden, stay deep within my heart. For now.

This, sometimes, is how I feel. When I remember. When an email arrives from Tami. When I see references to Central Asia; or Colorado; or Kenya; or ....just anything. Anything can remind me.

The shock of Stan’s sudden passing has stayed with me and, sometimes or so it seems, almost intensified. I find myself more teary, more upset and more unable to talk about it. This morning, in church, I was in pieces afterwards. We sang an old hymn, reminding me of an incident with Stan and Tami in Africa Gospel Church we attended together all those years ago. Sharing a hymn book, I saw Tami smile at Stan – and of course he smiled back, with that wonderful kind grin he had – as they sang together. Now they can do that no longer.

And I just wonder how Tami is feeling. Unimaginable: for I must feel only a fraction of the grief. Surely she must wish to be with him.

The world was a better place with Stan Brown in it. Fortunate is heaven, now, to have him. His body may have entered the decay process, but his soul continues on forever. I regret there were not, in latter years, enough shared moments. Life. moves on. until life ends. Gladly, for us, that is not the end of The Story.

Yet in the here and now, we carry grief still within us. While we strive to live in the present moment, mindfully focusing on what just IS, not what was or will be, the past informs the present. What has happened, or not happened, changes us. The present influences the future. The grief remains.

So, for now: just don’t ask me how I am. I may not be able to choke out a reply. Because this, sometimes, is how I feel. Even when I do not remember. This grief is just...in me.