Today my heart aches;
my soul aches. Grief is like that, you know.
One minute, you are moving along seemingly doing well in
this new normal that is life and then it hits. Sometimes you may see it coming
like the dark clouds of a storm rolling in across the field. You think to
yourself, I’ll have time to go in and take shelter, but all too soon, the storm
is upon you. Lighting illuminates your mind with a terrifying jolt of loss
while the thunder shakes the ground in a loud tumultuous roar much like the cry
of goodbye spoken far too soon. Tears
soak you to the bone, and you find yourself alone in that field underneath the
tallest tree, dripping with regret and dreading the next moment -- the moment the
memories start to beat down, relentless, striking a chord in your heart you unassumingly thought was beginning to heal. In an instant, life is ripped
away again, and you are left devastated. Then some loving soul who has
weathered the same storm finds you, broken and beaten, picks you up and gives
your heart a place to rest. They know the storm. It finds them too as it does
you. You know it, too. You know its
pattern. You know the days the storm is most likely to come. Yet this time, this time, you think it will pass you
by. This time will be different because you’ve prepared. Years without your child
have made you invincible, yet still, when it arrives, it finds you exposed, alone
in that field, pleading with God for mercy and strength. How foolish you were
to think you were safe. How foolish to think years of preparation could exempt
you from the loss all over again.
Those of us entrenched in this storm of grief realize there
is no pattern. There is no safe place. When the storm comes, it comes. Sometimes it doesn’t uproot you; sometimes it does.
The
further into this journey I go, the more I realize there is only one certainty
in grief. It always, always returns.
And much like an actual storm, so does grief blow in trapping
you in a whirlwind for a brief time, only to leave a path of destruction you
must rebuild. One can only hope next time, the damage will be less severe and
the rebuilding time shorter than before.
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