'Learning to Integrate our Losses'

'A bereavement is the loss of someone or something vital, who or which fills our spirit and heart, brings us alive, and calls forth our energies. This loss leaves an inner emptiness; our energies are no longer called forth. We feel disoriented and confused. The energy is still there, it is part of us, but we no longer have anything to focus it on. Emptiness or boredom turns into anguish. If we are to welcome the great bereavements of old age and death, we need to pass through stages, to have learned to welcome all the little bereavements which begin early on in life and continue to occur throughout.'

- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 124