I've had this hanging by my desk since I struggled through losing my first H nine years ago. It's actually from a book I read about bipolar disorder (the title escapes me right now), but forget about the bipolar part for a second. I've always felt that this sums up what I went through (and am going through) -- and how I feel -- due to losing someone I love. It doesn't focus so much on the process as mush as I believe it does the wonderful feelings we'll have in the end -- mainly because of what we learned through the process. This passage is a constant reminder that we grow through struggle, often becoming a much better, much more sensitive and much more loving person.
I'm hoping this may be as helpful to some of you as it always has been to me:
So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; worn death "as close as dungarees," appreciated it -- and life -- more; seen the finest and the most terrible in people, and slowly learned the values of caring, loyalty and seeing things through. I have seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are. Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness -- the intensity it gives to things and the perspective it forces on me. I think it has made me test the limits of my mind (which, while wanting, is holding) and the limits of my upbringing, family, education and friends.
