Saturday's Sayings - The Reflection in the Mirror

Saturday's Sayings

The Reflection in the Mirror

Who’s that woman looking back at me in the mirror?

She doesn’t smile back at me; she has so much pain in her eyes.

I don’t like looking in the mirror; she is so much older than me.

Who is she and what does she want from me?

There are times I can see tears in her eyes.

What can I do for her?

How can I help her?

Does she know me?

I don’t recognize her.

I need to know her name; I think I’ve seen her before but, I’m not sure.

How long is she going to look back at me?

I don’t like this can someone please tell me her name?

Oh, wait a minute, I think I know her.

I’m looking at the face of PAIN.

~Unknown

*****

My husband Tommy came home from the doctor's office this week and said that while he was sitting on the doctor's table, he looked up and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He was shocked to see puffy eyes with black circles underneath, and such a deflated look... He came home and asked me,

"Do I always look like that?!"

I too am shocked when I go to brush my teeth, look in the mirror, and think,

"Who is that old woman with the incredibly sad eyes looking at me?"

-- I look like I've aged at least ten to twenty years over these past five years of deep grief..."

*****

A grieving mother from one of the grief groups to which I belong shared this on Monday:

"When someone we love dies, a part of our life-dream dies, too...the depth and magnitude of the life-dream loss colored by the depth and magnitude of the love shared. There should really be two funerals. One honoring the person who died. The other honoring the part of our life-dream that has been crushed, obliterated, destroyed, and forever changed."

~Tom Zuba

Thank you Kristine.

*****

Another precious grieving mother shared with me last week:

"[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather."

~Frederick Buechner, in Telling Secrets

She also shared this scripture; in this, may we take heart...

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

~2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)

Thank you Leslie.

Picture and Poem - thanks to Grieving Mothers