Compassion and empathy

Photo by Greg Lincoln

by Greg Lincoln

What is the meaning of compassion and empathy? Empathy is the ability to feel and understand what another person is going through. Compassion is to suffer together.

These kinds of words and feelings are part of healing from any kind of grief, and especially the kind of grief where you have lost a loved one cherished and imprinted into your heart.

Unrecoverable loss is when you have lost someone you love, such as a spouse or parent, or sibling, your friend. The greatest most devastating loss is when you have lost a child. A child signifies and represents all of your dreams, your future hopes, and the overall purpose, the reason of your life.

Do we live for ourselves? No, whatever we do, we do it for our children. Not for our own selfishness, but for them.

The loss of a child comes with indescribable pain and agony and we know that many of you have experienced this kind of loss. We pray and think of you always! Sometimes we see you in the community, at the store, at the airport, or the post office. It is an amazing thing when we see how you are persevering through tragedy and you inspire us to do the same.

Behind each word that we write are tears of unfathomable grief and sadness. This is one of the hardest most difficult things for us to write about each week, it brings back all of the emotions like a flood and we succumb to the painwracked feeling of crying until we run dry. Tears blur our vision as we seek out the right words to say.

All of our hopes and dreams of the future have been swept away into a deep dark nothingness. The course of our existence on this earth has shifted devastatingly. What benefit is there to all of this? Again our human weakness causes us to question, to try to make sense of it is futile.

This pain, it is lurking just below the surface. And oh how it makes us feel so brittle like eggshells, so easily broken.

We just want to make it through the day and count it as another victory. How different we are now since we have laid her to rest but knowing that she is asleep gives us comfort, at peace and at rest. And we know that at some point, when we are ready, we must make other dreams, other hopes and plans for another different future.

Quyana for taking time to read these thoughts, these words of ours from our bereaved minds. Dearest friends, you have all been so great to us, thanks for the cards and notes of encouragement that you send, we treasure them and keep them close to our hearts. You shall be known throughout for your care and love through these articles, thank you so very sincerely.

And as always, please continue to steadfastly pray for us and others like us and we will do the same.