Grief Speaks

When the wave of the nevers come it's important

to just try to breathe and bring yourself back to this moment.

Do something to ground yourself. Go for a walk, take a shower,

have some herbal tea, eat a mint, pet your dog or cat or borrow

a neighbor's pet, give yourself a good hug, draw, breathing in

and out slowly, putting in some music without words, anything

that uses your senses can help us come back to this moment

here and now. Just need to be in this moment and get through

this next moment or hour or day.

Running into the future in our minds can be overwhelming.

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- Cadmus

Life is just a stopping place,

A pause in what's to be,

A resting place along the road

to sweet eternity.

We all have different journeys,

Different paths along the way,

We all were meant to learn some things,

but we were never meant to stay

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If you could see your ancestors

All standing in a row,

There might be some of them, perhaps,

You wouldn't want to know.

But, here's another question, which

Requires another view,

If you could meet your ancestors,

Would they be proud of you?

---Arkansas Parent-Teacher

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As I sit in Heaven

and watch you everyday

I try to let you know with signs

I never went away

I hear you when you're laughing

And watch you as you sleep

I even place my arms around you

To calm you when you weep

I see you wish the days away

Begging to have me home

So I try to send you signs

So you know you are not alone

Dont feel guilty that you have

Life that was denied to me

Heaven is truly beautiful

Just you wait and see

So live your life, laugh again

Enjoy yourself, be free

Then I know with every breath you take

You'll be taking one for me....

Arthur unknown

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"Strangers in the Box" By Pamela A. Harazim

Come, look with me inside this drawer, In this box I've often seen,

At the pictures, black and white, Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people, These strangers in the box,

Their names and all their memories Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like. How did they spend their days?

What about their special times? I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time To tell who, what, where, when,

These faces of my heritage, Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate Of the pictures we take today?

The faces and the memories Someday to be tossed away?

Make time to save your pictures, Seize the opportunity when it knocks,

Or someday you and yours could be The strangers in the box.

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A CALLING:

What calls us to find the ancestors? It goes beyond a simple curiosity. We are taken over, compelled, as if possessed by something bigger than us that is begging to be revealed. There is one of us in most every family, called to be the scribe. I am but one of the many in the long line of storytellers of our clan. Like others I am called to gather and assemble the ancestors—to breathe life back into them as far back as we can reach. We take what we find and chronicle the facts of their existence, remembering their names and who they were and what they did. They are the sum of who we are, for without them, we would not exist. We greet those who came before us, restoring their place in the familial line. We scribe their stories and their histories. We search for them in public libraries, county records, and weed-filled or well-kept cemeteries. We comb through yellowed newspapers, family archives, and lovely old letters and photo albums. We find them! And in finding them—we find ourselves.

Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau, Sep 2009