i wanted you to know i saw your shadow pass by the doorway. i didn't know it was you who was coming to call on my family. of little good that would have been, when nothing seems to stop you. life was as it once was. i took comfort in my people all around me. you watched us through the door and coveted our happiness. you watched with familiarity at our blissful disregard.
i stood up to you, face to face. alone for the first time. you were skillful at wielding the knife. the moment before i was cut in two, you looked me straight in the eye and didn't look away. i was terrified at the sight, but you took my hand and eased your way into my life. you took refuge in the emptiness of my heart. you crept in while i was in shock, and wrapped your tendrils through my insides.
the next of kin. the next of ken. maybe you tried to hold me up or make it seem different or comfort me with finality. then you slapped me with the coldness of a stranger's words. you strangled my heart with your relentless grip. i could feel you in my throat as i tried to choke out my despair. how i wished to go back to the moment before. i've had that feeling so many times since.
you forced your way into my life. the fear and fog of the moments in between, tried to edge out my love and reason. memory will battle you for my heart until my own dying day. for now, i must live with you struggling for control. perhaps you think, as i do, things would have been better if we never met.
my letter to grief is part of a link up on this blog. this is the first real writing i've done in a long time. it completely surprises me that my voice presents with this: a story of the abuse we endure at the hands of grief. this is how i remember the moments before and after i learned my father had died unexpectedly.
Amen! Things would have been better if I had never met grief but I have learned that when grief filled my heart and left no room for happy, I also found God in a bigger way than ever before. God replaces my nightmares with His dreams because He is the dream keeper. Blessed to be visiting you from Kate's link up.
ReplyDeletelight always finds it's way through our broken...
DeleteThe only good thing about grief is that it reveals the true nature of the enemy - it seeks to bind our lives in temproal; tragedy, to scar our hearts against taking a chance on love, to cauterize our souls against compassion.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is a lie, the cousin of the greed that would hold all things close in the world,. forever.
All passes in this world, but I believe that God saves the good stuff, and that He has it waiting for us at the end. Untarnished, and forever new.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-message-for-grief-shove-off.html
it is a lie - you're right!
DeleteOh sweet girl, how eloquent and heart rending. Yes, grief is that shadowy creature who lurks in the background but he can never compete with the bright light of love - the love you had for your father and even more so, the love he had for you. Nothing in this world or beyond can ever diminish that.
ReplyDeleteHe is remembered so much more by love than by grief. xxx
thanks, gf, bobbie. better to hold onto the love for sure. i know you know.
DeleteI hear your heart in this, and wish there was a way we could alleviate the pain of loss. God can bind up the brokenhearted, I know this with my head, but it can be hard to invite Him to do it because part of me welcomes the pain. How messed up is that? But somehow grief has tricked me into thinking it's an indicator of keeping the relationship alive. Plus, to bind up something, sometimes you have to straighten it out, shift bones back into place, and that is painful as well. Let's both keep trying to remember that we aren't alone, even in this pain, even if we have to remind ourselves every single day.
ReplyDeletethose are comforting words. thanks so much for your thoughts.
DeleteWow. This is so powerful. Thank you for writing and linking up. I'm so very sorry for your loss, and for the pain you've endured. May the God of all comfort be your source of comfort and strength now and always.
ReplyDeletethank you, kate. this was good for me to write/ sort all this out. it's been some time ago that my dad died. the holidays are always tough when someone is missing. but, i will say, endings come with a beginning. i like to think of all the new things rather than hold on to the grief.
Delete