I think of Jane when I read this

Three years and 12 days after Rosie’s death, it’s seldom that someone actually ‘gets’ or acknowledges how I am feeling. To be brutally honest ,I find that hard , but I guess, to a lot of other people , our grief is history. We all know people have busy lives and in pyschobabble speak- move-on .But on the 21st I had the most beautiful card from a friend ,Fiona. She didn’t know Rosie well. We’d had a couple of picnics with her and her two boys in Osterley park ( one involving wheelchair races and a sabre- don’t ask ) . She is a Buddhist and in the room in her home where she chants , she has a photo of Rosie.That alone moves me greatly.

This is what she wrote …

Dear Rachel, I love this ( see under ) and always think of you when I read it, Love Fiona x

”He notes that courage is often seen as a hero warrior virtue, relating to battle and to endurance in the face of perilous physical challenges and adventures.

However , his focus is on the daily acts of courage that many people exhibit in the process of leading ordinary lives.Epic adventures like mountain climbing, whilst dangerous, are often self constrained in duration ,and when over ,if all goes well ,see a return to the status quo of ones’ life.But he notes facing grief and disappointment is quite different; these are open ended dispensations with embedded unforeseeable’s.

He quotes the Roman philosopher, Seneca, that there are ‘times when merely to live, is itself an act of courage’.Grayling writes : ‘ to lie sleepless with pain at night, or to wake every morning and feel the return of grief, yet to get up and carry on as best as one can , is courage itself,.’ ” AC Grayling

One Reply to “I think of Jane when I read this”

  1. Rachel, Seneca’s words are so poignant,they made me cry. We have to be positive, which is so dam tiring. I see myself as an iceberg, one eighth on show to everyone and 7/8ths below the surface struggling not to melt. I’m here,raising my glass to our beautiful daughters

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