Conversations with Grief

""Grief walks with you minute by minute, then hour by hour, and maybe then day by day, or week by week. It turns up uninvited, and often leaves unexpectedly. It can be delayed, it can be compartmentalised, but at some point it must be confronted. If not it will begin to seep, into crevices, into good things, work, children, hobbies. It seeps and then it opens that part up of you like a gaping hole. Peace has to be made with grief. What grief takes, it can give. There is no grief without love. In addressing grief, we grow stronger, and we get to know ourselves better. We forge an appreciation for the deep love we experienced that led us to this pain. A fragment of what is lost stays with us, and it starts to grow. It guides us forward. But at 12 years old I ran from it, as fast as my chubby little legs could carry me, so the reckoning came many years later. After many years of running from her, and all of the exhaustion that was involved, Grief, in all of her persistence, was able to teach me many lessons. So many times, I have taken solace in the words of others who have walked the grief journey before me. In this book, I share with you the deepest conversations I have had with my grief, in the hope that they may connect with you, so you know you are not alone. They are concise but powerful words you can refer to again and again.""