If I don’t like a meal, I’ll ask the waiter to bring it back. If I don’t like the way a new shirt fits, I’ll return it. When grieving struck and suffering rolled over me like a tidal wave, they carried a no-return policy. M told me there were gifts in my suffering if I was willing to look for them. Here is an excerpt from Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again:
“I heard M chuckle as she said, “Suffering … gives everyone gifts if we have the courage to recognize the gifts, and even greater courage to put the gifts into action. Our gifts come at a great price. No one seeks them. We pass by their window many times and never pay attention to them. Now it’s your turn to enter its store and take hold of your gifts.”
I understood what M was saying. It was a difficult truth to accept. She was pointing the way to a healthy choice and leaving the final decision up to me.
I said, “Thank you, M. I hear the shopkeeper inviting me in to accept my gifts.”
“I know of no other way to look at the grieving experience, Ray. Consider journaling about the gifts suffering offers you. Before I go, let me read a quote from The Diary of Anne Frank: ‘I don’t think about all the misery, but about all the beauty that remains.”
Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again. Available in paperback and ebook formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Kobo.
Excerpt From Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again. This material is copyright protected
