Grief is the Worst Psychic Pain of All. How Can We Endure It?

I still grieve for my dog, Bogie.  I hate grief, it is the worst psychic pain of all.  How can we deal with it?  I think it’s similar to the flu.  You just have to suffer through it while waiting for it to pass.  In my home I see Bogie everywhere, in the back yard, in the living room where he lay in front of my armchair where I watch TV, at the foot of my bed where he slept most every night of the last twelve years.  I am waiting for scar tissue to cover the gaping wound in my soul.

I know there are many people suffering even more terrible grief than I, like the families in Waukesha, Wisconsin who lost six family members who were run over by a car that plowed into the Christmas parade that they were part of.  I have a friend, a Lutheran pastor, whose 14 year old son committed suicide over some personal pain he was experiencing. He was a talented kid who was a lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans, and his parents’ only child.  I can’t imagine how painful that must be to his parents.  Also, My best friend for sixty years lost his only son in a car crash in 2001.  My grief pales in comparison.

May God grant us all peace and release from such unbearable pain.

Rose Kennedy had this to say:  “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’  I do not agree.The wounds remain.  In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.  But it is never gone.”