Sharing a Patient’s Grief
Mary Grace Milam
To grasp the grief of others
Hold the weight of it for a while
Heavy on your soul
Its cool loneliness chilling the edges
Sharpening tears in your eyes
To truly see
The burdened human spirit who keeps it
Trying not to get dragged down by its leaden load
It is to glimpse humanity
Even in its despair there is an utter beauty
The realness…
The power it has to meld the mind
To shape the paths it takes
I wish I could make it smaller
Bend it in a way to make it easier to carry
But this is only “show and tell”
Seen, the grief is buried again
Its weight placed back against the thoughts of the keeper
But perhaps adjusted
Vulnerability must smooth some of the sharp edges
I still worry though
Distribution may not matter
I know now
Just how heavy this load is