The place where beauty starts

Not to make loss beautiful,

But to make loss the place
Where beauty starts...

Gregory Orr

Today, incredibly, is the seventh anniversary of my mother's death; and in three months' time it will be my father's seventh anniversary. I say "incredibly" because there are times I can't quite believe that seven whole years have already passed; and then, there are other times when it feels equally incredible that only seven years have passed.

Loss, bereavement, grief, are never beautiful, but they are - they have to be - the place where healing and growth can begin. And that healing is a slow, often imperceptible process; an in and out, up and down, totally non-linear, uncharted journey, with unexpected markers and an unimagined, completely unimaginable destination. Unimaginable because, in the depths of raw pain it can be impossible to even try to imagine, not only that healing and growth can exist somewhere beyond the horizon, but that this pain can be their very source. And in that healing lies the promise of an equally unimaginable beauty.

Not to make loss beautiful,

But to make loss the place
Where beauty starts. Where
the heart understands
For the first time
The nature of its journey...