Sometimes words help hold space when nothing else can.

Holding Grief
by Pauline Straw

Tears run freely,
stinging pink eyes,
daubed with damp tissues
by cold, bony fingers.
Her frail frame
sinks
into the deep green
velvet chair.

Her heart,
rent with sorrow and rage,
aches for absent touch,
hollowed by empty laughter,
missed celebrations,
and tortured “if-onlys.”

I sit in her sadness,
not offering hope,
but holding space
where she can be herself
here and now.

I trust
that one day
she will remember him
and smile.

Writing is one of the ways I support people through grief, as a therapist and as a human being.