When there is no light

at the end of the tunnel

I want to be someone who helps others when there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is what grief work feels like. Helping others when they cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel. They are afraid that there will never be any light. Not ever. At first there is no light. There is no ability to even look for the tunnel.

Time stands still. How is it possible that they are gone? There is a circle that surrounds the griever for a short while. And then many in this circle disappear.

The griever looks to others to understand, their children and friends. They often don’t. They are often afraid of their own feelings, afraid that might come up if they stand too close to the griever.

The griever might find their way to a circle like our circle, the Grief Solace Circle, where they can breathe and connect. This circle does not tell them to “get over it” or ask then “ why are you still sad?”

The widows sit beside the women who have lost children who sit along side the young indigenous women who have lost so much, siblings to drug addiction and car accidents, birth mothers to alcoholism.

Others have lost friends and relationships. The older women whose partners are gone put fear in my heart because they are so sad. I don’t want to be one of them.

I have also looked down the tunnel and not seen the light. When my boys lived with their father, when my mother first died. Now there is light for me, much that comes from holding space for others who grieve.

It doesn’t really matter what I know nor what I say. They connect with each other and that is everything.