What
we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an
end is to make a beginning.The end is where we start from.
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets
And we enter what Dr. Seuss refers to as "The Waiting Place".
The last book he published before his death was fittingly a serious tale of the ups and down of life.
"You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting..."
What we often times call the beginning is really marking the end of something. This “something” can be the end of a job, the end of living in a certain place, the end of a friendship, or the temporary loss of health, the loss of a body part or the loss of a life. The end is where we begin, where we start anew. For this to happen we must grieve our losses. Just as everyone is an individual, everyone mourns in his or her own personal way and in his or her own time. On the average it can take 18 - 24 months to complete the mourning process - for children much longer.
The grieving, mourning process allows us to begin again, to open our heart to change and to new possibilities, to start again.
