Time and Sadness

 I am not sure that I entirely agree with Jean de La Fontaine, when he wrote, "With the wings of time, sadness flies away."

I know that "time is a great healer" - another cliché - and that in many cases, time does lessen, or even heal, the impact of lesser sadnesses. For example, events which seemed the end of the world when we were teenagers, matter not a jot now (unless they do, of course). 

The passing of time can even lessen the sharpness of grief. But here's the thing - grief is far from a simple process. I know about Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Yet no grieving person I know has moved smoothly from one to the next to the next. It is far more complicated than that.  One day we can believe we're "over the worst" then a sound or sight or taste or smell can remind us all over again of what we have lost, and we are plunged back into the depths once more. 

Some grief never heals. But somehow, we learn to make space for it in our hearts and go on living anyway. We never forget, never cease to miss our loved one, but somehow manage to choose life. Perhaps that is a form of healing.