But my humor evaporated once I faced the white wooden fence at the entrance. My eyes blurred with tears. The tears, which I'm a fanatic about labeling, were not tears of sorrow, hurt, or pain. They were those special tears cried when we know someone has cared for, looked after, and loved us, even when we didn't realize what was happening. My spirit had come to this place for safety, but not from Covid or our country's looming troubles. Long before news of the virus and the shutdown, this corner of the world had become my secure haven and respite.
Four years into my grief, I was invited to facilitate a writing workshop. Sascha, a poet and bereaved mother who had lost both her children— the youngest to drowning and the oldest to suicide—asked me to fill in for her at a conference in Denver, Colorado. She was ill and needed a substitute. I was instructed to share how beneficial writing from heartache is. As I stood at the podium before forty bereaved parents, I knew writing helped me. But did others find it therapeutic? I introduced some writing prompts and was pleased when parents stood to read their poetry in memory of their son or daughter.
After I made it through the workshop—where I hoped no one had noticed my insecurity from being a novice—one of the event volunteers approached me. I thought she was trying to make me feel good when she said, "Alice, there was a lot of healing going on in that room." I had no idea what a room of healing looked like.
Decades later, I know. I know how a grassy landscape of remorse becomes a sanctuary of discovery and gratitude. I know how God takes our most profound agony and replaces it with his joy. I know how pouring pain onto paper transforms pent- up anguish into hope. I have experienced how a mother lacking confidence dared to seek fulfillment. This did not happen over weeks; it took years.
And that is another pleasure of being at the cemetery: the dead don’t complain.
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