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Two Hands Full of Loss

Writer: The Grief HouseThe Grief House

Accept is made from the root word kap, "to grasp," w


hich made the word kapati, "two handfuls" in Sanskrit. Later it made kaptein "to swallow, gulp down" in Greek, and Capax, "able to hold much, broad" in Latin.


This month we're considering what it means to accept loss. To swallow, gulp down loss. To hold much loss, broadly.


Loss, from the root word leu, ""to loosen, divide, cut apart."


For me, the words describe the thing I want quite perfectly. Yes. That's what I'll do. I will fill both my hands and swallow down loss so it can loosen and divide me; cut me apart. I will make myself broad for it and, thus broadened, I will hold much.


I can feel it and see it - can you?

Loosened like in pictures where the light shears through me. Swallowed like fields swallow mist, like mist swallows fields.


What if I didn't imagine I could keep loss out or leave it behind me? What if I let myself be opened by it and everything that streams in, and everything that flies

away?


I don't know what that would be like. I almost know. I'd like to find out.

We could try. We could swallow loss, be loosened and hold much, together.

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The Atlanta Grief House Nickerson Cottage at Legacy Park Decatur 500 S. Columbia Dr, Decatur, GA 30030 Notes on finding us: GPS will take you to the center of Legacy Park. The Nickerson Cottage is a stone building with raised bed gardens on the south side of Legacy Park's campus. If you enter campus through the south entrance it will be the first cottage you come to. You can park in any of the surrounding lots. If coming in the evening you will see the string lights on our front porch. Nickerson Cottage is largely wheelchair accessible.

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We honor them as we live, work and serve grievers on these unceeded lands. 

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