Having suffered a truly great loss in my life, I found some comfort in a certain card, a translation of a russian quote, that I found myself, but the instant I read it, I bought it for me. The gist of the poem was "yes, how sad that this person died, but how much sadder it would be if they had never lived." I read it many times over the years and it gave me comfort-in those grief stricken moments, when you don't even want to get out of bed, and in those subtle ones, when you realize you have something to tell them and you can't.
The themes behind sympathy cards are as varied as the people they are for.
A Mother's Quilt, for a quilter, that symbolizes her family
A Tree- symbolizing a family tree, with deep strong roots
A Road- that they still travel on with you, but have just gone on ahead
A Fisherman- patiently waiting for his family around the bend of a river
Each time I write a sympathy poem I am mindful of this unifying human condition of grief. And, I hope, that my words can bring some small measure of comfort, like the words in the card I bought did for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment