Dear Follower
Thank you, dear follower, for sticking with me thus far, for caring enough to read these posts. I so appreciate knowing you are there, feeling your love, and receiving your reactions to my writing. It nourishes me as I carry on.
This morning I felt the grip of the anger monkey, the self-pity monster, and the other evil demons. I submitted to them for a while and found myself again despairing that Jocelyn is gone. I picked up the little book Roni gave me to help me through, “Healing After Loss,” and opened it. This passage appeared:
“We are called to be food and drink for one another.” – Wendy M. Wright
That’s how important to me you’ve become – as essential as food and water – by sharing the experience of the Healing Voyage with me through these posts.
But this street of sorrow runs two ways. If you’re following, you may be suffering too. Jocelyn touched many lives, was loved by many. My heart breaks for you, knowing you loved someone so dear to me, someone you too lost. This bond we now share compels me to want to help you with your trials as best I can just as you have helped me. Thank you for letting me be part of your life.
So, too, am I grateful for my brother, Bill, who has joined me throughout the Healing Voyage thus far. We have succeeded in reaching Ucluelet, a small fishing and tourism center on Vancouver Island’s west coast, where he will depart overland for Victoria and a return flight to his home in Rhode Island.
Celebratory beers in hand, Bill and I reminisced about highlights of the Healing Voyage, represented by these photos:
Jack, I just read all of your blog today, for the first time. It is sorrow itself to read about your suffering. If it took courage to write it, it’s commendable. If it brought solace to you, again, it’s commendable. For your friends who read it, it’s insight into your struggles. We long to know about it. How’s Jack doing? Read the blog. And witness a small bit of healing or resolve or something changing in him too. That change, as you wrote, is there. I suppose there’s nothing good in your suffering but maybe one thing: Now you know deeply and personally what such a great loss is. The one thing is that your experience of it might be of help to others who go through it. Sooner or later, that’s going to be a lot of us. I’ll be better in following your blog in the future. Fram, fram (Viking battle cry for “forward, forward”). — John