Grief
On Oprah’s Life Class (on the OWN network) Oprah was discussing a 2000 Oprah Episode with Gary Zukav.
A couple had twins and one had passed shortly after birth. Gary had a very insightful message that really moved me and I wanted to share it here with my readers. I have not lost a child but I did lose my father to lung cancer and was angry with him for quite a long time:
Mother’s question: “How do I not let this loss and tragedy in my life take it over?”
Gary’s response: 
“This is a matter of perspective. Perspective of the personality or perspective of the soul. If you look at Ryan (the baby that died) as a personality who lived for a few days and then encountered tragic circumstances and died then you are looking from the point of view of personality. If you look at Ryan as a soul, like yourself, your husband, those around us, that left this earth when it chose then you will have a different perspective.
Then you will be able to see the gifts this soul offered to you during its short stay on the earth. You will reach a place in your life where you are grateful that this soul chose to be with you for however short a time. If you do not you will live your life in anguish thinking that a tragedy has occurred whenever you see your other son growing up, you will say Ryan should be here, when you see your other son graduating you will say Ryan should have graduated, when he finds his wife you will say, Ryan should be getting married too and through all of this time you will be imposing on your other son a burden to carry because no matter what he does or how successful he is he will be causing his mother pain.
If you look at Ryan as a soul, a great soul like yourself who voluntarily entered the earth school and voluntarily left it in order to be with you and to offer gifts then you will begin the process of fathoming and appreciating and becoming grateful for the power of the interaction that you had with that soul and you will be able to receive the gifts that that soul came to this earth to give you, to give to your husband, and to your siblings and if you do not, you will continually be turning away from those gifts, you will be denying the very wealth of wisdom and compassion that was offered to you by this soul.“
Gary Zukav is the author of several excellent books. Seat of the Soul is one I really enjoyed.
I heard this episode on satellite radio today — it was in fact very powerful, and even more so hearing it said by Gary — I cannot find the complete version of this episode on line — only an edited version which cuts out the most moving of Gary’s words – would you happen to know how I could find this episode in full? I know someone who it would be wonderful to send it to —
Thank you
Yes, I agree he says it in such a manner that coming from anyone else would probably cold. I am sorry, I do not know where you could find an unedited version – did you check with Oprah’s people?
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