Yesterday I attended a stimulating workshop with Bob Neimeyer a psychologist expert on bereavement and grief  who has published widely on the subject (click here for his website). It was all about managing the loss of a loved one, especially children, through finding the benefits and the meaning in the loss – not something that is easily done, especially early on. BTW, he recommended this website as an excellent resource for assistance in dealing with losses of all different kinds: www.opentohope.com.

We were asked to do an exercise that he gets his patients to do, as way of opening up a different, meaning-based dialogue around a person’s grief. We were asked to write a story, that incorporated, in no particular order, the following elements: a crying child, a talking animal, a mountain, an empty house and a sunrise. In the 8 minutes we were given the essence of the following came to me:

The Mountain was less concerned about the child’s crying. The Goat and the Mountain had been good friends for a long time.

“Without death there is no life. Without an end there can be no new beginning,” the Mountain reminded the Goat.

“But the human child is in pain,” the Goat said.

“Who said pain is a bad thing?” the Mountain asked the Goat.” It always ends, and from pain our most important growth occurs.”

“Better this life than the next,” the Goat added softly.

By the time the sun rose the next morning on the now empty house, the child too, like her mother, had passed over. The Goat ate grass and the Mountain just was.