Dalai Lama „Buddha’s Path to Happiness“, Schneverdingen 1998, with Eva Etta and Gerald Blomeyer
(c) Jens Nagels
„Love consoles like sunshine after rain.“ – William Shakespeare (1564–1616), English playwrite
Life simply happens.
The arrow of time moves forward relentlessly, there is nothing we can do to stop it. Twenty years ago, I cared for my wife, Eva Etta (1948–2005), for a year as death drew ever closer. We tried to understand the inevitable—her dying taught us more than we could have ever imagined. The proces of dying became our teacher, helping us prepare for the farewell so that we would not be completely overwhelmed when the moment finally arrived.
Deep inside, we sought healing for the pain and for the inevitable loss. We tried to find balance, to face the pain with trust—through acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and love. And that meant being patient. Very patient.
During that year, which challenged us more than anything before, I learned to practice „reframing“—transforming all that was negative into something positive. Seeing the positive side consoled me and gave me hope. The wounds led me to a love that goes beyond what words can express—a love that is a state of being. The world as we knew it suddenly appeared an illusion. And so I learned to hold anger, fear, and worries within the vastness of loving kindness. I am grateful for everything I was able to learn during that time, but still—I did not feel grounded. It was difficult to recognize myself, especially regarding my identity. For I had always defined it through our love. And when she left me, a part of me was lost.
Grief as a Deeply Personal and Transformative Process
True solace comes in the moment when we confront that trembling feeling, when we dare to resist dissolving into pain. It is the small yet powerful act of defying resignation when life takes away what matters most to us.
The American author and hospice movement pioneer, Stephen Levine (1937–2016), described the pain of loss as a healing process in which we integrate the loss into our lives. We are challenged to fully face our pain and embrace it with compassion and tenderness. For grief is a form of love and, at the same time, a way to honor the deceased.
Levine emphasized that life and death are deeply and intimately connected. To truly live, we must confront our mortality. By experiencing the depth of our grief, we can begin to transform ourselves. It is a process that teaches us to accept our raw emotions without running away from them. Our pain is not something that needs to be „fixed“ but rather a part of the vast, intricate dance of life and death. With compassion for ourselves and for the departed, we can welcome our grief with an open heart and grow from it.
Consolation and Hope Are Inseparable
We offer condolences—a word deeply rooted in history, derived from the Latin condolere, meaning to feel with or to share in another’s suffering. But solace is more than that. It is the attempt to cope with pain, to share it, or at least to endure it.
What we all seek is a way to move forward, to see life as meaningful again, even when it sometimes feels unbearable. Hope is the belief that we can rise again from our losses and disappointments, that pain will not define us forever. Hope is the realization that the time we have left still holds possibilities, even if they do not always come in the form we wish for.
There are losses that stay with us forever, scars that never fully fade. But we stay alive because we live in the hope that pain is not the end but the beginning of something we do not yet understand. It is the moment when we realize that what we have lost also lives on within us. Being consoled is finding oneself in this mixture of hope and despair as well as accepting that there is no “right” ending. Pain and joy, loss and continuation—they are intertwined.
Perhaps the deepest solace is precisely this: understanding that we ourselves are the river of time—always in motion, always changing, never final.
Reflection
When was the last time you were consoled in a moment of despair? What helped you cope with the situation? Is there a difference between the feeling of hope and the feeling of comfort? Are they two sides of the same coin, or do they differ?
Podcast Meditation: Grief-Compassion Meditation
Gerald Blomeyer, Berlin, January 31st, 2025