The following words were borrowed from a book titled
"SAFE PASSAGE" by Molly Fumia. They could not have captured my feelings better if I had penned them myself.


I am so tired. These callous circumstances have stolen away my energy and my motivation. I am left without the power to continue moving; I can hardly imagine the strength even to stand in place. I want only to give in to my exhaustion, to sleep and sleep until I can wake up to another, less evil reality.



They tell me to take it easy, give yourself time, just sit for awhile. But that doesn’t work. They tell me to keep busy, go on a trip, take up something new. That doesn’t work either. To do nothing, to do everything. Nothing works. Nothing works.



A kaleidoscope of feelings has ensnared me. Denial, anger, guilt, despair, acceptance. One does not end for another to begin, rather the emotions tumble about and crash together just beyond control, and without regard for my wounded, weeping heart. I am waiting to become disentangled. I want to separate one color from another, so that I might see more clearly what assaults me. I want to address the fullness of my tears one feeling at a time.



I haven’t eaten in days. Eventually, I’ll have to eat. When I feel like eating again, I hope I won’t feel guilty, but will respect my sense that it is all right for me to live, even though you have died.



Even though I am surrounded by friends, I think about images of the past that are still present for me. Which of these ghosts, if any, deserves my attention? It seems unkind to banish them all from among the living, from a place that was once theirs. But I want to laugh again, to participate once more in lively conversation. While I welcome those memories that have been invited, I will eventually close the door on those which haunt me.



I am afraid to be angry. Rage betrays the need to accept what has happened. Yet I am also afraid to accept. Acquiescence might suggest that I have given in to fate and to the injustice of your being taken from me. Despite the taboo on anger, I sense that I have that right, even though fury will not alter the facts. It is not, “I understand, but I am furious.” It is, I understand and I’m furious.” For now, to survive, I choose both acceptance and indignation. Then even though your loss will never be okay, someday I will be.



Sleeping, which used to relieve the fullness of the day, has become just another difficult task, I first avoid my bed, knowing that if I stop moving, memories will sneak into my fading consciousness and force a sob up into my throat. Other nights I lie awake for hours— feeling nothing, but still unable to capture sleep. Or I wake in the pre-dawn darkness, hoping desperately that the clock has moved toward morning. I was not prepared for sleep to be an enemy. What I need now is a friend, and a way to rest my weary spirit.



Even though I am encircled by friends, I wonder when my loneliness will cease. Even though I am surrounded by the familiar, I wonder if I will ever feel at home again. I am alone and lost, and I am enraged that I could have been so cruelly sent far away from what used to comfort me.



I am afraid I will get lost in the maze of my feelings, that I will go in there and never come out. Still, I am unexplainably drawn into the dark labyrinth where I might find only despair and panic for companions. They will receive me there, and offer to take me through the darkness. If they plot the sole exit, I have no choice but to receive them too, befriend them in return for showing me the way.



Death has separated us, but not completely. We have not parted company forever. l am only living away from you for a while.



As I continue grief’s journey, my body aches from its burden of overwhelming sorrow. My throat is tight, my stomach knotted, my chest bruised with an inner hurt that makes it difficult to draw a breath. It feels as if my skin has been removed and I am exposed to the brutality of the world, undefended even by a thin protection. I can only hope that as with other journeys, there will be a time for rest. And as with other hurts, my body will someday heal.



Isolation is the worst case scenario of grieving. They say that my pain begs to be shared; yet I seem to be pulling away, separating from everyone. Only by avoiding feelings can I come close to another. Only by avoiding others can I bear to feel. The way back to intimacy requires crossing a killing field of emotion. I will risk it eventually, and perhaps those who wait for me on the other side will find returning to them a less fearful, more trusting spirit.



I am engulfed with an emptiness that is thunderous. Time has become an echo: empty, empty. How will I ever fill up the moments? One at a time, one at a time.



Getting through the day is like walking through a mine field of deadly moments of recollection. Just when I have slipped beneath the surface of remembering, drawn there by the benevolent distractions of daily life, the grim new reality suddenly explodes around me, reminding me that everything is terribly, permanently different. And I must absorb the same first brutal shock, the same descending horror, over and over again. I am deceived by those instances of forgetfulness, yet I am obviously not ready to live every moment with the inalterable truth.



We know ourselves by the stories we tell. Losing you has dismantled my storyline and shaken my plot; the tale I tell about who I am and where I am going doesn’t make sense anymore. I want desperately to find other words that will imagine my life anew. I just don’t know where and how that story will begin.



If I could tell you my one regret, it would be that I didn’t love you better, I had always intended to improve upon that, because you deserved to be well loved. And if you could tell me your one regret, it would be that everyone deserves to be well loved. With that in mind, I will lend the world whatever energy for love I still possess, and improve upon things in your name.

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