Helping Others, Healing Sorrow
The last few years have been hard for me and its been difficult to get back to my purposeful life - which I have devoted first: to being the mother my children need and deserve and second: to serve God by helping others.
I know this is what my murdered therapist would have told me to do. It is what she encouraged me to do, among other things and was my silent cheerleader in everything I did do. Also, it is what she devoted her life to doing - helping others.
For some time after her murder I "sat a personal shiva" for the relationship which is now gone, and which I and everyone who knew her, had ripped from them. I stayed and even revisit that grief on occassion. That's exactly what she would have told me to do - take as long as you need and don't let anyone tell you to just "get over it." And I am going on with life. As my beloved Nana (who lost her husband suddenly when she was 48, and her son just 4 years before her death) said - "Keep living, there are people who need you. The dead take care of their own."
Through it all I continue to learn from my sorrows and my struggle with what will never make sense to me.
I know this is what my murdered therapist would have told me to do. It is what she encouraged me to do, among other things and was my silent cheerleader in everything I did do. Also, it is what she devoted her life to doing - helping others.
For some time after her murder I "sat a personal shiva" for the relationship which is now gone, and which I and everyone who knew her, had ripped from them. I stayed and even revisit that grief on occassion. That's exactly what she would have told me to do - take as long as you need and don't let anyone tell you to just "get over it." And I am going on with life. As my beloved Nana (who lost her husband suddenly when she was 48, and her son just 4 years before her death) said - "Keep living, there are people who need you. The dead take care of their own."
Through it all I continue to learn from my sorrows and my struggle with what will never make sense to me.
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According to a Chinese proverb, a day of sorrow is longer than a month of joy. There is truth in that ancient wisdom. When dark, difficult, dreary days come, the weight seems unbearable, the length interminable. And those days of sorrow and sadness come to all. Here are some strategies for the healing of sorrow.
No one goes through life without experiencing disappointments and losses — a job is lost; friends or relatives experience marital problems; a child is injured; a good friend betrays a confidence; someone we counted on lets us down. The litany of human sorrows can be very long.
Heal yourself by helping others. Consider this comment by Dr Albert Scheweitzer: 
Study, learn and respond to your sorrow, "Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to rethink properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us," observed Samuel Johnson. Let sorrow be your teacher. There are times when sorrow can alert and awaken us.
"I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."Helping others brings solace to our own spirits because in reaching out to another we take the focus off our own pain and hurt. By helping someone in need, our perspective is broadened. The heavy, oppressive feelings suffocating our spirits are lightened through the joy gained through helping a needy person.
Study, learn and respond to your sorrow, "Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to rethink properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us," observed Samuel Johnson. Let sorrow be your teacher. There are times when sorrow can alert and awaken us.
"The soul would have no rainbow had the eye no tears" - American poet, John Vance Cheney.excerpts from This Source
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