Loss

The first time you lose someone it's overwhelming. Like hyperventilating; you try and try to catch your breath but you can't. Only instead of air it's reality you're gasping for. This paralyzing feeling that "This can't be true." This first experience is staggering, it stays with you. Lingers in your mind to help you keep mere sad events in perspective. But over time, as the losses grow in number there begins to be, a weariness. Sadness yes, but so much more than just that. The more people you lose, the more familiar with loss you become, there begins to be a weariness.

I never understood why in movies or on television a man or woman would hear bad news, take a few steps and then collapse. It was a striking image and I could in some small way fathom why having your heartbroken could take the wind from one's sails, literally. But I don't think I fully grasped that kind of tiredness, until tonight. It's almost like being a time traveler feeling loss in three different times. Every loss you felt once springs to mind and suddenly you realize that this loss like the ones before it won't be the last.

To live in this fading world is to lose. Everything about this world is meant to end. This, is not eternity. I think it's something about that realization. Something about feeling all those moments again and for the first time, all at once. Suddenly you're more tired than you've ever been and you just want rest.

For me I've noticed grief comes in waves. I'll bawl for 40 seconds, then there's stillness and calm. I'm almost normal again. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour or a year goes by and all of a sudden I remember the time paradox that is grief. The wave returns, I weep and empty myself out before God. Then calm again. Sometimes He'll distract me with a thought or dream some person whose face in my mind I can't refuse, or memory that tickles me to laughter so loud it breaks through the tears. Sometimes it's a dream that anchors me and keeps me from drifting in the sea of sadness. But He always comes. Reminds me of the joy of this life. How every moment is a gift. One that I should use to honor the lives and dreams and joy of those I lost. Those who can't finish what they started here. So I have to, for them. I owe it to them.

Selah