I can see it there.  Hiding in the corner.  I finish washing the dishes in the sink and then turn to look at it.  I can see it’s big eyes staring back at me and when our eyes meet I well up with deep tears.   My shaky voice stammers “Not now, ” and then I walk outside to the garage to fix my son’s bike.

This grief has been trailing me for awhile.  It started out as a draft or push of air and when I felt it I walked the other way or shut the window in my chest.  About a week ago I awoke in the middle of the night and felt its presence like one feels the weather about to change.  I sat up and felt a deep,  almost sick feeling in my stomach.  I searched the room and found only grief’s shadow flickering against the wall, “not now” I whispered and rolled over in my bed.

Now as I walk the hallway of my house I see him more clearly as the days past.  Sometimes I find him huddled in the corner staring back at me, sometimes I find him sitting next to me as I drive to work and recently I woke to find him laying next to me.  I screamed at him to leave, “NOT NOW!” I shouted and he scurried out of my bed back into the corner pulling his legs up tight.  I put my hand on the pillow where he had laid and feel the damp salty water.

It was 4 a.m. and I couldn’t sleep.  I tossed and turned trying desperately to quiet my mind.  It felt as if I had a hot ember in my throat that I was too afraid to swallow and too afraid to bring up so it stayed there burning.  I could sense the amount of effort my body spent on trying to stay in this “middle place” this grey burning…..it was time we spoke.  I sat up, “are you there” I whispered.  ”Yes” said Grief.  ”What is it you wanted to show me?” I said.  He stands and then sits next to me in bed.  He is a liquid figure with nothing I can really make out except his eyes and he smells of the sea.  He begins to hang memories like pictures on a wall but in the air in front of me.  They dance with light, movement, sound and emotions.  We sit and watch these memories laughing, crying and sometimes in quiet reverence.  Finally the memories fade back  into the night and there is only one picture left hanging, the one of those I have lost.  They smile at me as light burns in their eyes and fingers.

Grief speaks, “Do you see it?”  ”Do I see what” I reply.  ”Do you SEE it?” Grief says calmly.  ”No…..I don’t…..I’m sorry.”  Grief blows a cloud of fog from his mouth the fog reveals a river running through them…..running through them and into me.  I see all the love they poured from their hearts running through mine and then through my wife, my children, my brothers, my sisters, my friends, my music…..my life.

“Do you see it now?” says Grief.
Yes.
“Why do you try so hard trying not to look at the love given to you?  Why do you try so hard not to look at me?  It is the reminder of love that I bring, a love that is not gone.”

“Because I hurt, I miss, I long and the tears won’t stop.”  I reply.
“Yes I know, I am the one who brings the tears.  Even in your longing there is love.  Your tears add to this river between you, they don’t take away.  Yes, the are not here but they are not gone, they are just…..hmmmmm……how can I explain it to you…AH!!!…..It is like cosmic peek-a-boo.  Have you ever played or seen a toddler play peek-a-boo?  The parent pulls up a blanket covering their face and the child is confused and suddenly sad, ‘where did my Dad go?’ then the parent lets the blanket fall and the child is delighted beyond measure.  MY Father has RETURNED! their face shines with glee.  But he was never really gone was he?  It seems silly to us that the child ever thought they were gone but we are no different.  This is just  a bigger game of peek-a-boo.  You tears and sadness are real but at some point the blanket of night and stars will fall and you will see your beloved again.”

I could feel a weight lifting from my chest, “Are we done?” I say to grief.
“Yes” he replies as he opens the window in my room and climbs out, “for now”.

Everything we try and hold on to so we don’t hurt only causes more hurt. It is only in the surrender that we overcome. How does that make sense you might say. I need to surrender in order to win, to get over, to move past? That doesn’t make sense. The thing I am trying to defeat I must surrender to? The thing I am trying to push with all my might away away away from me I must embrace? This makes no sense. No, I understand that it does not but the rain falls on us all does it not? What would you say if you saw a person standing in a field swinging a sword at the rain trying to get it to retreat, or swinging their fists as the drops fall or thinking that curling up in a ball will stop them from getting wet. The rain falls on us all. Put down your sword, unclench your fist, put away your maps detailing how you will avoid the rain and let the rain wash you clean.

Posted by Trent on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am.