Pet owners understand that the loss of a pet is often harder than the loss of a loved human being. Perhaps it is because our animals love and accept us unconditionally.
My friend Margaret is grieving the loss of Charlie; his purring, his demands for food, his bossiness, his willfulness and his charm, love and affaction. Charlie loved and was greatly loved.
I was thinking - " what is the purpose of grief ? " as all our emotions serve a purpose.
I think grief puts us in touch with existential issues as it is often when we lose something or when we are separated from something that we truly realise what it is that we have.
Grief raises questions like :
" what does this life mean ? "
" what does this death mean ? "
" what did this person or pet mean to me ? "
Grief also puts us in touch with our own mortality; something that we all have to address and face one day.
Something has to die for something to be born.
What is it to die ?
Kahlil Gibran says :
.......what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Summer makes way for Autumn , Autumn for Winter , Winter eventually turns into Spring and Night into Day .We do not grieve the changing of seasons, in the same way , nor Day turning into Night.
Is grieving to do with attachment ?
Can we be both attached and unattached at the same time ? Can we hold both living and dying at the same time and love both equally ?
