I grieve...

Last night I set out for a walk when the streets had already quieted and people were nestling, snuggled in their beds. The moon was ripe with light, surrounded by an abundance of clouds that looked like they had been canvas textured in my Photoshop. Perhaps it was because of the saturated cloud diffusion but the light was almost too bright. All of that reflection just bouncing around, from white to white, almost blinded me.

I've been walking alongside my sadness. I know better than to run from it, and I certainly know that it needs to be honored. But the time had come to accept it. This is the hardest part of grieving because you're letting go of what you grasped so tightly. I let my anger flow and right on its tail came the tears. There was just no escaping last night's reflection. Transformed, my tears became daggers of light which ripped their way down my face before leaping from my chin, on their journey to quench the dry earth beneath me.

Unfair. Fair is an idea that perhaps should be removed from our consciousness. Isn't it just a self-imposed concept that we conveniently paste on whatever we choose to either embrace or deny? It certainly isn't fair that she died. It isn't fair that she suffered the way that she did. It isn't fair when life hands us an unbearable load, takes our love, or burns our house down. Fair is irrelevant. People get sick, people are unkind, people are selfish and we suffer. We ache. We die.

I'm not sure how long I walked or cried, but my eyes were starting to run dry. When I looked up at the moon I noticed that it had burned a big hole in the clouds. Now I could see it so clearly as it waited, alone in its halo of clarity. I thought about Dawn and wondered about so many things... things I'll never know. There are no answers to most of our questions. And that is what makes acceptance so difficult. What we have left is our own manufactured resolution. This is what fills in the holes, and allows us to fill up the well again. Perhaps this emotional caulking is a simple practice in delusion, but what other choice do we have? Wallowing is a waste of precious time and energy.

As I headed toward the last hill that would lead me home I remembered that I could wish. I wished and hoped. I hoped that the last time she spent with her children, that they laughed. Then I wished that they will find that laughter again.

Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen