This article was first published in the anthology Everyday Spiritual Practice, Skinner House Books, Boston, 1999, four years after Ericka's death.

Loss is a tearing of the soul, and so the work of grieving is a work of healing and growth. There can be unbelievable pain, especially when what is lost is part of your being. When my oldest daughter Ericka was murdered in April of 1993, it felt to me that the fabric of the universe itself was torn. As I descended, sometimes by tiny steps, sometimes tumbling down headlong into the process of mourning her, I found that I was opening to a force almost dismembering in its intensity. 

I began a journey of healing that is still in process and will always touch me in some way. Nearly four years later I am opening packages in my heart that contain glimpses of her agony, glimpses I couldn't have handled before.  We are wise about protecting ourselves from overwhelming shock, loss, and trauma. We can wall off and freeze what would shatter us beyond recovery. But this exacts a physical and spiritual price that increases over time. The internal pressures of unresolved pain can spur us to seek numbness in ultimately self-destructive addictions. Physical pain or illness is another common by-product of this repressive coping. While I respect the age-old wisdom that time heals all wounds, I've found it safer, easier, and less painful to consciously engage in the pursuit of healing day by day. Next ...