All Is Well

 

There have been a lot of hard losses in this little community lately. In the three years since my own, I can tell you that there has been maybe one other string of words that have spoken to me like these have. It speaks to a soul full of sorrow, reminding us that this journey we're on isn't (shouldn't be) one of only grief.

Loss is this messy, scattered pile of human emotions in their most intense state- handed, or shoved rather- into the arms of a person that doesn't yet have the hands to hold it. Ironically this is the thing that bonds life's two most sacred and yet opposite events- new life and transition of an old one. No other events in life will hand you the heightened mess of emotion that this pair does.

And there is something beautiful in that.

I wish I could tell you, the person experiencing such immense sorrow, how important it is to speak of your loss and keep your loved one alive in you. I watch my present loved ones struggle so silently, suppressing the most devastating life event without a single hand to take up along the way. Pretend like nothing happened, our pain is embarrassing- the events that took you are embarrassing.

But they are not.

You are you. I am me. You have left  but you did not take our time together away with you. I don't hesitate anymore when they ask me, and 'you' are not past tense. You are, he is, we are and always will be. I am angry with you for the events that took you, just as I would be if you physically stood in front of me today. I am angry because I would be. And of course I still love you. Just as it remained true in our life together, no amount of anger you make me feel could make me love you any less.

It's just
kind of funny that it has taken such a while on this journey for me to understand that.