Waves

Recently a friend e-mailed me this passage...

"Grief tends to come in waves.
After the initial shock, the waves begin to wash over you unpredictably. At
first, the waves are huge and close together and you are afraid that you will
drown. Eventually, they get smaller and more manageable and you grow less afraid
of them, although a big one can still take you by surprise. Working through
grief means that you can just stand there and let the waves sweep over you and
try not to run or pretend you're not getting soaked. Standing there feeling the
waves, you start to realize that this is as bad as it's going to get and you
begin to survive. That's when you start to pass through the other side of
mourning: accepting and making peace with your loss (Unspeakable Losses by Kim Kluger-Bell) ."

I love this imagery, particularly because I imagined myself as the ocean when I was giving birth to Ellie.  I imagined the wave of each contraction coming in, peaking, and then going back out to sea.  I find it soothing to imagine grief in this same way, transient, not permanent, as so often in the thick of it, it feels as if it will never pass.