Grief

I've been grieving a loss, with little let-up or relief, for the past seven months. Yesterday I suddenly remembered a passage in a book that has sometimes comforted me in the past, as to previous losses.

The book is I Heard the Owl Call My Name, by Margaret Craven, set in an Indian village of the Pacific Northwest. The passage comes near the very end, when the villagers are mourning the death of a young priest. He had ministered to their parish for the previous year, and earned their trust and affection. Marta, an elderly woman, is particularly saddened by this loss.

On the night of the day Mark died, she prays by speaking to his spirit. She uses the words of her people's tradition:

Walk straight on, my son. Do not look back. Do not turn your head. You are going to the land of our fathers.

It puzzles me, to some extent, why I should find this passage so comforting. I think it is because the passage suggests that the person whom we have lost still has a road to travel, and that he or she is on it. There is comfort in that. And it suggests that they have not so much left us as gone on before us, that they travel a road we will ourselves one day traverse. There is comfort in that as well.

I do seem to feel somewhat better about this most recent loss since remembering Marta's prayer.