Everybody mourns in his own individual way.  Some wail, some must crawl off by themselves, some need to be with others, some need to get drunk, others prefer to pray.  To each his own.

I prefer the silence of meditation and memories.  I prefer to mourn quietly.  I don’t want to do it for a long time as I’d rather celebrate the life, but I do honor the act of mourning even though I believe in life eternal — especially for those who leave us seemingly early.

I lost over a hundred friends in the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s.  Back then, when someone you knew was diagnosed as HIV positive, that’s when you mourned.  By the time they passed, you were grateful the ordeal was over for them.  It wasn’t fun and I’m sorry to say that I got used to it somewhat.  It became a regular occurrence in my life.  Who was next, one wondered, and it was always somebody.

Two wonderful people that Julia and I knew lost their son, Maurizio, in the late 90s Swiss Air crash over Halifax.  We went through this experience with these two loved ones and shared their grief.  Up until this point in life I pretty much left grieving to all the others and tried to focus on the positives of the life lost, but in this situation I got caught in the middle of it and fully experienced the parent’s powerful grief.

I remember once when the father began to weep in his grief and got up from the dinner table and walked over to the nearest wall, leaned his forehead on the wall standing up and just bawled for about 4 minutes straight.  We sat quietly and waited him out.  When he finished, he simply came back to the table, sat down and resumed eating.  He got it out of his system for the moment, and that taught me a great lesson.  His grief would build and he would cry it out.  Seemed like a good idea.

But I’m not built that way.  I guess I need to reason it out.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m cold.  When my Dad passed away, I decided that he had just moved to California.  This way I avoided the grief.  Seemed like a good idea.

Now, each time it’s different.  I let the person and the situation determine the reaction and simply try to go with my heart, but usually it’s a quiet thing.  I wrote this song for Maurizio and his parents.  I never knew Maurizio, but it was easy to mourn for his parents.  I think they suffered far more than Maurizio.

In Silence

When one you love disappears
Like smoke they blow away
The heartbeat rings in your ears
In silence
In silence

You lose your place with it all
And life goes hollow
You turn your face to the wall
In silence
In silence

But I am here for you
I will see you through

And if you weep then I will weep with you
And if you mourn then I will mourn with you
And if you die then I will live for you
In silence
In silence

The bells they toll on the wind
They sing of sadness
The mending soul must begin
In silence
Begin in silence

And as you bear your pain
Your loss will be your gain

But if you brood then I will brood with you
And if you grieve then I will grieve with you
And if you break then I’ll be there for you
In silence
In silence

We will weep
In silence
We will mourn
In silence
We’ll remember in silence

We will heal
In silence
We will mend
In silence
We’ll go on in silence

We will love
In silence
We endure
In silence
And we carry on…