THE ART OF LETTING GO: "Learning" - to "Let Go"

Day and night I keep on weeping, crying for your help, but there is no reply. . . Psalm 22:2 (TLB)

“We attempt to comfort ourselves and make sense out of dying but the “the problem with death is the Absence” - Roger Rosenblatt.

The Journey – how I came to think of surviving my loss – to me had to two major components to face. One was: the Pain, in which I must painfully endure live with a missing part of life; and the other, the Process – of Letting Go. Letting go of what was, and will never again . . . be.

Moreover, if you decide to read books on grief or seek grief counseling, you will undoubtedly come across a description of the challenges for what "grievers" endure during the process of Grief known as – the "5 Stages of Grief ”. A term coined by noted author and psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross for her work with dying and grieving patience; however, I so disliked this “acceptance” phase. It seemed too much of a cliche and too"nice and neat" of which grief is neither – for the pain I was enduring. And I felt such anger because I was given a choice in the matter of – "IF", I wanted to "do" this!

Although it may have been a “practical” truth, it angered me to continuously being told, I must "accept" this loss. And my knowing, I could not . . .

So, in time, I came to think of it differently – as a new journey I must learn to walk alone. I intuitively understood that I had to endure the painful days and I must find the strength to keep going; thereby in time – “letting go." There are no two ways about it – Death, is so unfair!

It forces you to face the “un-face-able."

And, it is such a lonely path.

Nevertheless, I came to accept that Grief is undeniably a PROCESS. “The Process”– was the pain and the agony of the way I would have to “walk-out”, and at times, felt like “crawled through”, each painful day towards learning how to live with that missing part of myself.

So, in time, I began embracing "THE PROCESS” – of what I must do – “TO SURVIVE”; and in time, "TO ACCEPT", the so-called "final" phase of grief, if there is ever such a thing, in the process of Learning – "THE ART OF LETTING GO."

Therefore, I refer to "IT"– this process/this journey as – "LEARNING" because of the turbulent emotional courage it will take to survive; and the "ebb and flow" of getting to a point to "keep going" tends to be combinations of trial and error, stumbling and falling, and despair and hope.

And I say it is an "art" because it is my sincerest prayer that God makes of me – His "Masterpiece”– of "grace and mercy" through this gut-wrenching journey.

But, as Judy Tatelbaum – in her book The Courage to Grieve perceptively expressed, “In time even the absence mutates into another kind of presence." As anyone suffering a profound loss comes to know, we never stop feeling the absence, but that thing, that mass we now carry will eventually quietly move into other chambers of our heart to allow us to the necessary strength to "do" our "every day" life.

So, I'm on my journey of "Learning" –

Listen To Song: Mikaila - "The Art of Letting Go"