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Writer's pictureSusannah Healy

Comfort For Those Who Grieve



A Poem I wrote for people of all faiths and none who mourn the loss of a loved one.


I Am Not Lost

I am not lost

I have not gone away.

I am, still.


Here, there is no time ,

No past, no present, no future,

These, are man-made prisons, created from the blunt instrument of blind misunderstanding.

No, there is only time-lessness

Outside of time, in a place they used to call eternity

I am not ended, I am, still, always, whatever way you choose to understand it,

No longer caught in the limits of human comprehension,

I am not lost. I have not gone away.


When words fail to help us understand,

When the writings of the world’s great traditions fail to clarify,

When centuries of stories and metaphor fall short

Take comfort in their failure.


Words fail. They are human tools, and therefore small in the vastness of things.

The things of which we speak and strive to understand cannot be drawn down,

Nor their nature captured by human mind nor metaphor.

God, with an outline, positioned in the sky, or on a throne,

Goddesses, animals, mountains…

Symbols, All, like the quaint scribbles of a child,

Fail to capture the ultimate beauty of which we speak.

I am not lost. I have not gone away.



What we speak of is not a thing,

It is not in the sky, nor any other place.

It is not an “It”

nor of no small design,

But all Existence Itself

And cannot be captured by that which is within it.


We have five senses, five tiny windows on to this world and the universe beyond

By which to understand it.

Five filters

That edit and select what we can know

And we are blind to all else.


Take comfort

When you casually switch channel with the wave of an instrument,

When an onion hurts your eyes

Even though it has not touched,

When your teacher tells you that energy cannot be created nor destroyed

When a dog delights in sounds and smells you cannot perceive,

When birds find their way to a foreign land they have never known

When love cannot be described.

Every day, this mysterious dimension shows itself to us

If we would pay attention.

I am there,

Just beyond the shutters of your human senses.

I am not lost. I have not gone away.


Let all these things remind you

Of the world beyond perception

The Unknowable,

Into which

On the passing of our human mould,

When the walls that blocked our understanding fall away,

You will see me again, unhindered.

I am not lost. I have not gone away

I am here

Safe in that place that you touch

When your mind stills.

But more than stillness

That place

Of love, complete.


Some day

You will know

That Love is not fleeting

It is no passing emotion

Nor no human thing

Though as humans we may touch it.


No,

Love, is

the Great Healer

The Gentle Place

The Ultimate Balm

Far beyond the Earthly forces

Of tides

Of gravity

Or wind.

Stillness, yes

But Love

That Is The Final Explanation

Our Home Place

And I am here

No Longer limited by place nor time

Free to be with you

To surround you

To hold you.

I am here.


You are not lost.



~Susannah Healy

The Seven Day Soul.com



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