After a fierce snow storm I stood in less than 10 degree weather and began to shovel. The sun was shining bright in the cloudless blue sky. Push. Lift. Toss. My body soon warmed from the work and sun. Despite the thermometer my coat soon came off and the cold greeted me with delight. I pondered the snow glistening in the sun and its weightlessness alone and heaviness clumped in my shovel. The miracle of a body moving and ears listening to the birds gathering in hope that seed would soon follow. Such simple moments, how can one put them in words? I am neither a poet nor artist, how can I describe such awe?

Then later to sit and stare at the computer wondering how to write the school discussion on grief. So many have I sat with as they sought to shovel the storms of grief that quilted their lives like a winter’s cold storm. I thought of my classmates, peers and researchers who say a counselor must reframe grief. We must find a way to help the one grieving to find purpose and meaning in their loss. Like a double exposure I saw research saying to reprogram and the image of a person in tears describing the not so helpful comments we make trying to make the grieving person feel “better.” I thought of how my body would mirror the grieving person in front or beside me as I sat in silence allowing him or her tell their story.  I have found working with grief transforms you from one “trying to help” to simply being a chalice. You sit and let the person pour his or her story and hold the gift with gentle hands that do not label, judge, question, and sometimes, no there is no need to speak. When the person is ready, the chalice is gifted back to their hands and their journey begins.

I pondered first how to write my class paper when my experience differs so from what is taught. I pondered how the experience of awe while shoveling snow kept drifting back as I struggled to write. And then the whisper. When we can see the beauty and awe in the mundane we can hold with equal awe and beauty the profundity of pain. Such awe and mystery cannot be held in words. It cannot be programmed. Its life is in the experience.

With doubting fingers, I typed the first sentences. “Death cannot be simply reframed. Grief and life are a process not an outcome.” The experience of shoveling will, like the day, never come again. It is gone. Death will come. May my life forever forge a chalice so deep that when that day comes, Life and death will have a bountiful drink.