Take the Pain

"I'd like to tell you it gets easier. It doesn't. If there's any comfort, it's getting used to the pain, I suppose."

The 2017 movie is Wind River, written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, and starring Jeremy Renner as a veteran tracker with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He's a father whose daughter died (sometime in the past; before the action of the movie). In one scene, he is talking with the father of a young woman who was just found dead and passes on the words of a grief counselor he met at a seminar.

The counselor came up to me after the seminar. He sat down next to me and said something that stuck with me....He says, "I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news. The bad news is, you're never gonna be the same. You're never gonna be whole. Not ever again. You lost your daughter and nothing's ever going to replace that. Now, the good news is, as soon as you accept that, and you let yourself suffer, you'll allow yourself to visit her in your mind. You'll remember all the love she gave; all the joy she knew."

The point is, Martin, you can't steer from the pain. If you do, you'll rob yourself  -  you'll rob yourself of every memory of her; every last one. From her first step to her last smile. Kill 'em all.

Take the pain, Martin. You hear me? You take it. It's the only way you'll keep her with you.

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Truth is...it is both acceptable and necessary to grieve a loss. I am grateful that, as a Christian, I "do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." (I Thessalonians 4:13)