The Risk of Love

"The risk of love is loss, and the price of
loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only
a shadow when compared with the pain
of never risking love."
Hilary Stanton Zunin

We've had to deal with a death today.

We didn't want to, and we didn't expect
to, but we get to deal with it anyway.

Death is hard to deal with, even when
you're expecting it. It's harder when it's
a surprise.

You feel like you've been blindsided,
unprepared, no chance to get your
defenses up.

No cocoon of armor to wrap yourself
in, to be safe from your feelings. So
all you can do is let the feelings wash
over you, and FEEL them.

It's not very comfortable. And it's even
worse when you realize that you're
resenting the person who died for
springing this on you so suddenly.

Slowly the waves of emotion slow down
and what's left is the grief and loss. And
as you get centered in that, perhaps the
wisdom in our quote comes to mind.

When you love, you risk loss. So how
can we avoid that? By not loving?

We know that's not the right answer.
All we can do is accept that grief is
a part of life. If we love and are loved
we'll have great joy and great grief.

The good news is that grief passes,
but love endures. We can be grateful
for that.
---Wes Hopper