I AM GRIEVING TODAY

posted by Etta Worthington

I am grieving.

I’m not aware of it all the time. But I catch a sense of it every once in a while. It’s like a little flashing thing out in the distance that suddenly blinds me with reflective light. For a moment. I notice it. I start to feel it. But then I skip on to another thing, to distract myself.

Well, today I am not going to find a distraction. I will let it happen.

I am grieving. And even as I write that, my eyes well up with tears.

I am grieving because I don’t think life will ever be the same again. And I am letting that slowly filter down to the bottom of my soul.

Something has changed.  Something has died.  I will never be the same again. We will never be the same again. Something has died. And will not be resurrected.

I am grieving.

I am grieving for our country. I am grieving for the 12,557 people who have died in the US from COVID-19 as of April 7^th.  And the countless more who will.

And so I do what I have learned to do when I encounter grief, when I let myself slow down and feel that grief. I turn up as loud as I can a recording of a requiem and listen to it.

Today it is Faure’s Requiem.  Which is my favorite requiem.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

The tenors sing, and then the whole choir joins in.

Kyrie eleison.

I have found that Requiems are a container for my grief. I listen to them and find myself incredibly sad. When the music swells to a peak, I break into deep sobs.

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna
in die illa tremenda
Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem

I am grieving today and after listening to Faure’s version of the requiem, I may go on to Mozart’s.  And much later today I may try Verdi’s. And by that time I will have sobbed my way through Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla. 

And I will be empty.

I am grieving today. I am grieving because I don’t think life will ever be the same again. And I am letting that slowly filter down to the bottom of my soul.

What about you?  Do you feel grief? How do you handle it?  What is the container for your grief?

Lyrics and translation available at this site.