Daily Ground – – -January 18
“If you haven’t yet, you will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”– Anne Lamott
My brother died 2 years ago today. It was sudden. He was young. They say the first year after a loss is the most difficult, but after losing four of the six people in my family of origin within about 5 years, I’d say it just gets different. I haven’t found it gets eaiser. The first year it’s difficult to function and I find myself displaying misdirected anger at innocent folks in front of me. It was difficult to sit still and just hurt for the pain felt as if it would kill me, so I ran in some robotic fashion that kept me at a safe distance from any real feeling.
The second year – I stop running so fast. This allows the pain to come. Because of the distance from the wound, the pain doesn’t feel like it will kill me. It’s more the numbness of a migraine that subsides enough so you can finally open your eyes in the light. The dull pain is nagging, but you can sit upright and feed yourself. The missing – that is what gets worse. The gnawing – that longing that something is missing. Yup that’s the limp you learn to dance with.
Peace.
piecesofpeace1 