My Virtual Reading Room

Well...this is a subject much on my mind lately, as it always is around this time of year...and I thought perhaps others might also find the following passage useful.
Cat

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We bereaved are not alone.  We belong to the largest company in all the world--the company of those who have known suffering.  When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world.  So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain...

Robbed of joy, of courage, of the very desire to live, the newly bereaved frequently avoids companionship, feeling himself so limp with misery and so empty of vitality that he is ill-suited for human contacts.  And yet no one is so bereaved, so miserable, that he cannot find someone else to succor, someone who needs friendship, understanding, and courage more than he.  The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves...

Often when the heart is torn with sorrow, spiritually we wander like a traveler lost in a deep wood.  We grow frightened, lose all sense of direction, batter ourselves against trees and rocks in our attempt to find a path.  All the while there is a path--a path of Faith--that leads straight out of the dense tangle of our difficulties into the open road we are seeking.  Let us not weep for those who have gone away when their lives were in full bloom and beauty.  Who are we that we should mourn them and wish them back?  Life at its every stage is good, but who shall say whether those who die in the splendor of their prime are not fortunate to have known no abatement, no dulling of the flame by ash, no slow fading of life's perfect flower.

(Helen Keller)