Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Brotherly Post - Good Grief

My brother Brad has written a wonderful post about grief.
Click here to give it a read.

How's this for a definition of pastoral care?
"What I think doesn't matter, doesn't mean a thing, to the person actually doing the grieving. What we as friends of the grieving must do is help the person find that thing that helps them."

About dealing with grief, he writes:

"We have two choices when faced with grief. Deny it and lose ourselves in the undertow too powerful for anyone to fight alone. Or face it, embrace it, sit in the dark and cry for three hours -and I mean the gasping for breath, snot running down the face kind of crying, the crying that makes you forget where you are or what you did - and become stronger, a more complete person."

And his tag line is wonderful:

"Behind every cloud there IS silver lining, but there's still one big badass storm on the way."

Thanks, B. Good stuff.

2 comments:

Brad said...

Thanks for the shout out, bro!

Anonymous said...

Andy, Thanks for pointing us to your brother's post. I've essentially commented the same at his blog, but wanted to add my 2 cents here, too.

I have been experiencing a horribly painful grief (not that there is a grief that isn't painful) losing the friendships of 10 people I thought would always be in my life - due to some stupid choices I've made and the way they have chosen to react. I am continually stunned at how much grieving I am having to go through even when it does not involve death.

It is a badass storm and I am so thankful for those I still have around me who are loving me and helping me get through this.