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grief & grit - RJ Lyday

[griefandgrit]

The pain of chronic illness, loss, loneliness, grief #artprayers #prayercollage #chronicillness #artheals #unlonely

[theprimroseproject]

Grief is a normal and healthy experience after loss. But so is resilience. Over the years an interesting change in grief therapy has been the emphasis on resilience; the awareness that people normally find healthy ways to adapt and live with loss. That’s not to say it’s a quick and easy task. It’s not that grieving suddenly ends and the person forgets and moves on. No, what happens is that a weight that initially feels unbearable becomes, in time, manageable. The grief becomes compact enough, with the hard edges removed, to be gently placed in one’s heart.

David Malham (via theprimroseproject)

[griefandgrit]

https://projectsunshineaotearoa.wordpress.com/

[griefandgrit]

Gathering sunflower seed Series 03: Harvesting, ca. 1921-1924 from Photographs collected by Rev. James Colwell portraying rural and agricultural scenes and activities. Photograph   PXB 310 / 63

[griefandgrit]

RJ Lyday, “Good Mourning after the funeral”

[griefandgrit]

RJ Lyday, “Torn”

[griefandgrit]

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

~When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; ~when death comes like the measle-pox: ~when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, ~I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? ~And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, ~and I look upon time as no more than an idea, ~and I consider eternity as another possibility, ~and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, ~and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, ~and each body a lion of courage, and something ~precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, ~and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

-Mary Oliver, “New and Selected Poems volume 1″ (1992)

~italics mine {RJ Lyday}

[griefandgrit]

Photo: “Still Frozen” RJ Lyday

[griefandgrit]

RJ Lyday, “Blind”