“Grief Share” Meeting: Looking for Answers, Comfort, and Help, by Scipio

Over a fifteen-minute period, one-by-one they silently moved into the room.  Muted greetings took place with an occasional forced smile.  They were wives, parents, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, daughters, animal lovers; all broken.

Before they entered the room, their guardian angels had proceeded them securing the room and standing somber, serious, and silently on guard.

The participants couldn’t see each other’s grief, only its manifestations.  But the angels could see into their souls the grief they brought into the room.  Some carried their hurts on their shoulders, looking very much like heavy bulky backpacks. Other’s burdens were so heavy they had to be drug behind them.  One woman’s grief was so severe, she left it at home and brought only a token of remembrance that she placed in her purse to remind her why she was there.

A feeling of sadness was present, but it was overwhelmed by a spirit of hope; drawn close, cuddled, and warm.  As each person was led by the group leader, himself a fellow griever, they began to interact with each other and tears began to flow, voices quivered, deep sighs were heard as they shared their grief.  It became an act of bonding and a sense of camaraderie over a common cause experienced privately, now being shared publicly.

It was a place where people could share their “broken record” stories with people who patiently listened and understood.  It was a place where they began to feel normal about their abnormalities.  It was a place where everyone who left carried slightly less loads of grief than they brought in.

It was a place where they were not alone, at least in this place.  It was a place where they learned how to re-enter the world of the living.  It was a place where they saw the prospects of living again, just not the way they were before.  It was a place where God met them where they needed it the most.  It was a place where the guardian angels knew Heaven met Earth.