Mourning Cloak

After reading thousands of pages on grief — in research, in literature, and in life itself — and after losing my father, my grandmother, two daughters, two close friends, and many others, I have come to understand something essential.

Grief is not the opposite of love. It is its shadow.

Where love has been deep, its shadow is long.

As a pastor, a researcher, and a companion in sorrow, I have walked beside many whose hearts have been broken open. And once, while wondering how I might share what I have learned, a mourning cloak butterfly landed on the rock in our yard — dark and beautiful, as if to remind me that love never disappears. It only changes form.