Remembrance

Yesterday was a Remembrance service at Mayo for patients who had died in the hospital the first half of the year. While I imagined it to be more therapeutic and healing, it really just tore some fragile scabs off healing wounds. A few words that stuck with me from the service:

"Every man can master a grief but he that has it." William Shakespeare

"The Gift" by Lois Tschetter Hjelmsted
It is a gift -
This reminder of mortality
This thing that slows me down
This reflective summer.

I know things about myself
I could not otherwise have known -
Pain can be endured
Uncertainty can be tolerated
Loss can be processed.

I know there is a well-spring of
Strength
Courage
Joy
Within me.

I know that time is not forever,
There is
An urgency
A poignancy
A preciousness
To life.

I know that I do not fear
Suffering or death
As much anymore.

It is a menace
It is a sorrow
It is a loss of innocence
It is a gift.