top of page

Peace of Heart




As I look back over the years after losing my brother, Rollo, 28 years ago this May, I am reminded of the importance of time in the journey of loss and grief. They say that time heals all wounds, and while this is a cliche that really irritates some people … for me, it has been very true and I have found tremendous comfort in this reality. 


After Rollo died, I received many cards from friends and family and one of them stood out. This particular card still comes to my mind when I struggle. This card had a line in it that I still remember.


May peace of heart slip slowly into your days.


At the time, I couldn’t even imagine what peace of heart would ever feel like again. I was mildly offended by the notion. I now lived in a world that I could no longer trust to be true - some sort of upside down world. What was up was now down. My heart no longer felt remotely capable of holding peace. 


However. HOWEVER


My heart has mended over time … despite more loss and heartache after losing Rollo, I have been able to experience joy and love in ways that I never thought possible. My capacity for compassion and non-judgment for others has grown significantly over the years, and while of course I have my days like anyone else I do want to provide hope for others who may be feeling as though the pain of loss will never, ever leave them. 


The pain itself never leaves, but it does change. The quality and texture of the pain transforms and transmutes from sharp, bleeding edges to a more tender, gentle ache that I would describe as longing. I am grateful for this fact - especially in a world that (for some strange reason) is seemingly trying to find a balance between messages of “you need to move on” and “grief never leaves and we carry it with us for the rest of our life”. 


Those messages are simply not true for me. My experience has taught me to allow grief to do its work within me so that I could heal … grow … evolve through my experience of loss. And along with it, my heart. 


Not only did peace of heart slip slowly into my days, but my capacity for peace of heart also expanded. 


I am still exploring why this is true for me, but I am tremendously grateful for Rollo’s gift to me … to live in these questions. Not to understand or to make sense of them but to live the questions themselves and to dwell in the mystery. 


My wish for anyone experiencing a significant loss is that slowly, over time peace of heart slips slowly into your days and that you may, one day, place your hand on your heart and feel more compassion and love than you ever thought possible. 


Happy Birthday, Rollo. Of the many, many things you taught me one of the most important was to question. Question everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this gift that has carried me through my adulthood and has led me to be curious about the world and my place in it. I am forever grateful for the gift of living in the mystery of the questions themselves. 


“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke 

0 comments

Comments


bottom of page