In the beginning of 2014, I started writing for AfterTalk about grieving for a father. I did it to appease a family friend. Back then, I think we had three people who wrote the blog posts on the site, and the other two were actively running it. Some of you didn’t know me then, and …
[Editor] The expression ,”Grief is the price for love” is erroneously attributed to Queen Elizabeth; but the quote comes from a longer passage by Dr Colin Murray Parkes, a British psychiatrist and a pioneer in this field. The Queen popularized it, but Dr Parkes’ full quote is eloquent and wise and deserves to be acknowledged.The full quote …
“She closed her eyes, silently continuing the pleas that she be given words that might soothe, words that would begin the healing of bereaved parents. She had seen, when she entered the kitchen, the chasm of sorrow that divided man and wife already, each deep in their own wretched suffering, neither knowing what to say …
“Before I lost my father, I never understood the rituals surrounding funerals: the wake, the service itself, the reception afterward, the dinners prepared by well-meaning friends and delivered in plastic containers, even the popular habit of making poster boards filled with photos of the dear departed. But now I know why we do those things. …
