“Grief is praise of those we have lost. Our own souls who have loved and are now heartbroken would turn to stone and hate us if we did not show such praise when we lose someone whom we love.

To not grieve is a violence to the Divine and our own hearts and especially to the dead. If we do not grieve what we miss, we are not praising what we love. We are not praising the life we have been given in order to love. If we do not praise whom we miss, we are ourselves in some way dead.

So grief and praise make us alive.“

Excerpted from The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martín Prechtel. (c) 2015, North Atlantic Books.
Photo: Oriana Rose saying goodbye to her dad at his home funeral, Sacred Crossings 2016