It is almost two years since my daughter, Laura, left this world very suddenly. We are still struggling with her absence in our lives. My books continue to give me comfort in the passages I read. Lots of times the words I read reflect my feelings so precisely. I would like to share this verse with you. It is exactly how Fred and I feel. It is taken from Healing after Loss, by Martha Whitmore Hickman.
The death of a loved one shifts the whole foundation of our life. Nothing is as it was. Even what was most familiar seems in a strange way unfamiliar. It is as though we had to learn a new language, a new way of seeing. Even the face in the mirror sometimes seems the face of a stranger.
What are we to make of this? Just that we truly have, in a way, entered a new country. Though the terrain looks much the same and many of the people are the same people, there is a different light over everything.
Remember how long it took, when you moved to a new house or a new town, for it to seem like home? It is the same with any major life change. We will get used to this new land, this new arrangement of people and relationships. But it will take time--time to look around, to be startled, and to be brought up short, again and again. An inner lurch of protest before we acknowledge--Oh, yes, it's different now.
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