When mourning becomes a cage, grief isn’t just about who we lost—it becomes who we are. In this moving episode, we follow Pattie, a widow who lived in the shadow of love lost, tethered to memories that gave comfort and captivity in equal measure. Through honest reflection and a poet’s eye, we explore how grief can quietly imprison us—and how, one journal page at a time, freedom begins. This is a story of heartbreak, healing, and the breathtaking moment when the soul decides to live again.
live
Today’s Quote: Change is Part of Life
To change is to live, to live is to change, and not to change is to die. ~ Tennessee Williams
Episode 36: Learning to Live While Grieving
In Episode 36 of my podcast, Journey from Grief to Healing, M and I talk about the small, important decisions a grieving person must make each day. Each decision is a decision to choose to live and continue on with life instead of giving into despair. I feel good. Although I still hurt, I’m making the small, choosing to live decisions.
You can listen to Episode 36 on your favorite podcasting app or click here for Episode 36
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Episode 25:Although I’m Grieving, I Make a Choice to Live
In Episode 25 of my podcast, Journey from Grief to Healing, I choose to live. I know I am battered by my emotions that are attempting to drown me in a river of sadness and depression, but I choose not to let them. I choose to live. My choice makes a difference to me. My choice doesn’t stop my strong grieving emotions from attacking me. Now I know they will not get the best of me.
“They May Rail at this Life” A Poem by Thomas Moore
They May Rail at this Life
Thomas Moore
They may rail at this life — from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I’ll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes
As before me this moment enraptured I see,
They may say what they will of their orbs in the skies,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In Mercury’s star, where each moment can bring them
New sunshine and wit from the fountain on high,
Though the nymphs may have livelier poets to sing them,
They’ve none, even there, more enamour’d than I.
And, as long as this harp can be waken’d to love,
And that eye its divine inspiration shall be,
They may talk as they will of their Edens above,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In that star of the west, by whose shadowy splendour,
At twilight so often we’ve roam’d through the dew,
There are maidens, perhaps, who have bosoms as tender,
And look, in their twilights, as lovely as you.
But though they were even more bright than the queen
Of that Isle they inhabit in heaven’s blue sea,
As I never those fair young celestials have seen,
Why — this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
As for those chilly orbs on the verge of creation,
Where sunshine and smiles must be equally rare,
Did they want a supply of cold hearts for that station,
Heaven knows we have plenty on earth we could spare,
Oh! think what a world we should have of it here,
If the haters of peace, of affection and glee,
Were to fly up to Saturn’s comfortless sphere,
And leave earth to such spirits as you, love, and me.
Poem forToday ~ Ode to the Sun
Ode to the Sun
Eloise Bibb Thompson
How many scenes, O sun,
Hast thou not shone upon!
How many tears, O light,
Have dropped before thy sight!
How many heart-felt sighs,
How many piercing cries,
How many deeds of woe,
Dost thy bright light not know!
How many broken hearts,
That are pierced by sorrow’s darts
How many maddened brains,
That are wild with passion’s rains;
How many soul-sick lives,
Stabbed with despair’s sharp knives,
Hast thou above the skies,
Not seen with thy radiant eyes!
Shine on, majestic one!
Shine on, O glorious sun!
And never fail to cheer
My life so dark and drear.
Whene’er thou shinest bright,
And show thy brilliant light,
The cares I know each day
Silently steal away.
Poem for Today ~ As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the world’s a stage]
As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the world’s a stage]
William Shakespeare
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Poem for today ~ To Make a Prairie
To Make a Prairie
Emily Dickinson
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Poem of the Day ~ Life is Fine
Life is Fine
Langston Hughes
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love—
But for livin’ I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry—
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!
Poem of the Day ~ Poem (Happiness)
Poem
Blance Taylor Dickinson
Ah, I know what happiness is. . . .
It is a timid little fawn
Creeping softly up to me
For one caress, then gone
Before I’m through with it . . .
Away, like dark from dawn!
Well I know what happiness is . . . !
It is the break of day that wears
A shining dew decked diadem . . .
An aftermath of tears.
Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy . . .
I’ve played with them for years,
And always they will slip away
Into the brush of another day.
