Good Grief! What is it? How can grief be good?

It can be good.  Grieving is one of life's challenges that can be embraced because through grief we grow.  Life is hard.  Losses are part of it.  Every person has losses of one kind or another.

Right now I am grieving the death of a friend.  I am so sad.  She was 79 years old, full of life, until she wasn't because her heart simply stopped.  No one could do anything.  She called 911 herself, I am told.  Walked out to the ambulance I am told, and then she went to the hospital, and died.  I am so sad.  So how can grief be good?

I am not saying grief "feels" good, I am saying grief can be good.  It is a symbol of love, of passion and of life's engagement.  Should you never witness grief then I dare to say you are not living.  Grief is a symbol of loss in life.  The challenge is how you handle it, how you cope, and what tools you have to work through it.  That is where I can help.

My passion for grief has been long standing.  I presided as witness and clergy to family funerals.  I delivered the eulogy at my father's funeral in 2005.  I then was given the gift of doing it again at our mother's funeral and I presided and facilitated the funeral of my brother who died, at 56, in 2011.  It was through these moments I realized I have a gift for understanding and grieving death for many.  I have the tools and I have love so great my arms can wrap around the world.

Death is part of living.  Benjamin Franklin said there were only two things certain in life:  death and taxes.  Many have gone further to say, 'too bad they don't come in that order'.  When we befriend death and welcome it into our lives before we must deal with it, dealing with it is so much easier.  Grieving allows us to look death in the eye and say, "you will not defeat me."  In the Christian faith, the death of Jesus is the climax of his life, only to be the beginning of his work in his death.  Through the resurrection story we can claim rebirth and life after death in so many ways. 

This is the challenge I am choosing to take on.  Teaching and coaching people to have a better relationship with dying.  Not only physical human death, that is one form, but also death of a job, death of a relationship, death of a home, and so on, and so on.   Ask questions and I will answer. Come to the corner of hope and cope and I will be there to walk with you!