Philip Yancey:
Another woman, in Wisconsin, lost her only son in a Marine Corps helicopter crash. For years she could not escape the dark cloud of grief. She kept her son’s room intact just as he had left it. Eventually, she began to notice how frequently helicopter crashes were reported on the news. She kept thinking of other families facing tragedies like hers, and wondering whether she could do something to help. Now, whenever a military helicopter crashes, she sends a packet of letters and helpful materials to an office in the Defense Department who forwards the packet to the affected family. About half of them strike up a regular correspondence, and in her retirement this Wisconsin woman directs her own “community of suffering.” The activity has not solve the grief of her son, of course, but it has given a sense of meaning, and she no longer feels helpless against that grief.
There is no more effective healer, I have found, than what Henri Nouwen calls “a wounded healer.” Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 124).
