Is it the hardest? It is for me.

Words and Music by Rick David, performed by Rhonda David, Produced by Jimmy Mac Studios, Ventura, CA

This is a song about grief… older grief, the kind that’s been around for awhile. The kind no one knows you still carry and some may expect you to be ‘over’ by now. Everyone has their own path so this song is not presented as a template or prescription but simply one witness. Our region has recently endured the Borderline shooting with grief unimaginable. Our community has come together to comfort and honor. Once the memorials are over and the headlines have changed, the grieving still grieve, mostly alone. If you are currently grieving, I honor and respect you deeply. Grief can be very lonely. “a heart knows its own bitterness’ Prov. 14.10 I hope you have a least one who can abide quietly with you. it seems that God alone knows fully.

Back in 1976 Elton John and Bernie Taupin released a beautiful song, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”, which is also a song about grief. Sorry hasn’t been the hardest word for me. Sorry never made me feel like dying. Gratefully I haven’t died from grief and I lived to write down some of my experience. Ironically, grief awakened me, opened me, changed me and made me better. I’m grateful I know it, yet would never want it again and recoil from it like fire.

All thoughts on grief are a treasure and valued as pearls if you care to share them.