Good Mourning

Last week I attended a funeral service for a stillborn infant of 23 weeks. The young twenty year old parents were surrounded by many friends and family members. The priest greeted us with the words that most of heard as ‘Good morning’. How strange I thought. She acknowledged the strangeness of the greeting and clarified that she really meant ‘Good mourning’, that we were going to take our time to mourn the loss of this infant, and to acknowledge that the mourning would continue. And that is the way it would be…

Ah, now I understood the profound greeting and immediately thought of the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project. My first experience with the LLF Project allowed me to experience the loss of my Dad in very powerful ways. One way was through the realization that his death was an intense ‘scream’ in my life, a time when one feels a deep loss and a scream, whether voiced or internal, is the sincerest response. My Trio- myself, and two others who acted as a witness and a guide- gently allowed me the expression of that loss in a way in which I could embrace the love that my mortal Dad had given me and to acknowledge that he would no longer be here as he had been. Yeah, Dad! You are still in my heart!

-Kate Reid