When You Lose a Loved One

For a long time I have had a stubborn ambition to write a book about grief. This is it.

As I have written this book, I realize that my own personal life has not been heavily marked with sorrow. But I have walked in the path of separation and sorrow with many people as I have tried to help them pick up the pieces of a broken dream or a broken family. Quite frequently I have, upon learning of the death of a friend, tried to put my feelings into a poem.

Why?

I ask myself the same question. Perhaps it is because in poetry my writing seems to come more out of my feelings than when it is simply prose. Also, when I write poetry, either rhyming or free verse, I have to rearrange words and ideas so they pick up a certain music. As a result I get an entirely different viewpoint.

It occurred to me that people who are suffering from the loss of a loved one—whether it is by death, divorce or a broken friendship, do not want advice. They need companionship and understanding not advice.