It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

ROSE KENNEDY

Does pain actually heal all the wounds?

Or is it more accurate that we continue to find our way through life, recognizing that there are certain variables which cannot be controlled?

Our ability to understand these variables, and to work within them, as best we may, is perhaps our only respite from a life of sadness.

It is only through our continuous attention to maintaining our own personal degree of sanity that we are able to move through these moments in our lives, and ultimately emerge on the other side as a whole human being.

But, it is not without the consequences that will inevitably arise as a result of the continuous work that is required in order that we might ultimately prevail, emotionally healthy.

I cannot imagine what Rose Kennedy weathered over the course of her life, with two of her sons having been assassinated. We might speculate as to what we think that agony would ultimately be, but we could never fully understand nor appreciate what she must have endured, going through all of that on a public stage.

Her son, before being taken down in Dallas, was capable of maintaining his calm and composure in order that he might stare down Kruschev in a moment of potential global annihilation, and was equally responsible for helping to initiate man’s journey into space and ultimately to the moon.

He and his brother were both exemplary in many categories, and that, all by itself, was good cause for a mother to be extraordinarily proud.

When we work to overcome the grief that we might potentially be feeling for any one of countless reasons, we might be well served to recognize that the pain does not ever truly go away, but rather, we eventually come to terms with it.

This process of acclamation to grief does not come with a manual, nor any other form of coping mechanism. We are, for the most part, on our own in our quest to process what we have endured, followed by learning to pick up our pieces and continue forward.

If you are grieving and do not know how to cope, seek some help and guidance from someone who is qualified to assist you with the process.

Happy Thursday!