PART THREE: Destination
Chapter Five: Cresting the Crisis
Entry Fifty-Four:
Everyone processes grief differently. This I am beginning to learn. At first, I thought all grief is the same…from what I had observed in the past, everyone seemed to deal with grief in a similar manner. But I know now, from my own first-hand experience that this is not true. There is no discernible pattern to grief…there are as many different paths as there are different people. I have learned also that there are just as many different ways to approach and console those who are grieving as there are different varieties of responses to loss. Some show no signs of distress…others are angry…others are vocal…many are silent.
Benjamin’s uncle, his godfather, came to see me today for the first time. Initially I did not wish to see him. I felt he had forsaken the one he had vowed never to abandon. But the holy Scriptures tell us not to give evil for evil , so I relented. And it was good. He explained that he was angry in the beginning…at Benjamin and then at me. He believed I was making a mockery of the law. But as time went by his heart outshone his mind, and he began to turn back to the path of light…the path of love and commitment. He admired my stance…my immovable resolution to stand with Benjamin, regardless of the pressure to do as Aaron, the rabbi, and the community has done…as they urge me to do. With tears Benjamin’s uncle, my brother-in-law, sought my forgiveness and I granted it gladly.
I took him along to meet my new friends…my new family. He wept freely as he confessed that what I ought to have received from him, I had received from others. But what matters is not when he came to me, but that he came…he, too, has enriched my life.
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