A New Time

Time...
will it make me feel better?
After the death of my spouse and loved one?
To tell the truth, time alone will not make you feel better.
What you DO with the time is what will shape your path and your life.

Give time to your memories;
remember the beautiful, the horrible,
the good, the bad, the ugly, the wonderful, the miserable.

Give time to your tears;
cry out in sorrow, pain, rage, frustration,
profound love, utter desolation, despair, and sheer exhaustion.

Give time to your love;
the love you two shared still dwells within you.
Remember the beauty of that love and all that came with it.
Cherish it, embrace it, and open your heart to its ever-changing nature.

Give time to your pain;
it is real, it is unimaginable, it is inescapable.
Listen to the pain, scream at it, scream with it.
Don't let it control your life, but don't deny its existence.

Give time to yourself ;
allow yourself time to be alone in this
unbearable new world you have entered.
Everything you thought you knew has been erased;
you have to discover everything,  including yourself, all over again.

Give time to your voice;
express your sorrow and loss and love in whatever language comes to you.
Speak through words, music, art, cooking, gardening, running, photography.
Give voice to your feelings and thoughts lest they build up and destroy you from within.

Give time to your silence;
in the darkest, quietest hours comes the deepest healing, the sweetest hope.

Give time to time itself.
There is never enough time.
Every year you had together, every day, every moment -- was a pure gift.

Treasure the past, give thanks for it,
and let it give strength to your present,
so that one day -- with time -- you can begin to imagine a new time, a new future.

Reviews

[Carole]

You really hammered a valuable truth here in response to healing from the death of a spouse being more than just time, Brenda : "To tell the truth, time alone will not make you feel better. What you DO with the time is what will shape your path and your life!" It is so true. Time passes daily, but it's what we do that alters or changes our lives either for the good or the bad. I know people that have gotten stuck in one of the 7 stages of grief by their own doing, and have never healed as a result. Being healthy and grieving in a healthy manner is very dependent upon what we do or do not do.

Your perspective is one of balance and genuine knowledge. I really believe you will one day be used to help those that have experienced a loss. You speak incredible wisdom and there is a strength that rings out from every word in this piece. Kudos, my friend. Keep on keepin' on! (((Hugs))), Carole

[Red Hood]

Time well spent on reading this.

[Silent Wolf]

One of the VERY few poems I have read, and one of the even fewer poems I have added to my library. A very well write. :3

[Rita]

Excellent and brilliant advice. Give time to memories, love, tears, yourself, pain, voice, silence, itself, treasure the past.

Bravo :)

[L.G. Knight]

This is beautiful and really great advise... deffinatly deserving of first place! Congratulations and great job!

~Frances~

[RareRed]

Very beautiful and very real.......this could be such an inspiration to so many people that are suffering. Such true words and such good advice put so beautifully into a poem. This is something that I would actually send to someone that was grieving a loss. Thank you for sharing!

[Dreams]

Yes

[The Archangel Gabriel]

Brenda Sue-

"Listen to the pain, scream at it, scream with it.
Don't let it control your life, but don't deny its existence."

Excellent advice. Don't let the pain rule you.

I recently had one of my older (but still young) female friends become widowed with many golden years before her. It was very sad and threw her whole life upside down for a while. After a while, however, she learned to move forward once again and is not losing the rest of her life to grief.

"so that one day -- with time -- you can begin to imagine a new time, a new future." Wonderfully put! It is always the start of a new life to those who can reach forth and grab it.

Wonderful write, and I love your pretty webarea. It is very happy and warm.

-Gabe

[Blackbirdsong]

Some good life lessons and wisdom in this and you write it with a lot of dignity and grace so it isn't at all preachy. It is clear you are writing from experience and then sharing those lessons with us. Thank you.

[Sqeaver]

Wow.

[SweetPeachesAlways]

I like your title; I might have called it A Pure Gift myself...but that's just me!

You have this way of expressing yourself so that I feel like I am looking through a photo album, almost like you are painting with your words, showing us your life in soothing pastels, but somehow grittier, more like photographs, comfort food snapshots of your past...even the painful parts are like mashed potatoes with lumps. I don't know if I expressed myself correctly but I feel oddly comforted, blanketed by a care-worn quilt of feelings for family, yeah, and values...

Good write!