It Beyond Hurts
A few days ago I was at my limit, frustrated at the clutter I found under the cabinet while bent down looking for the stupid remote. Cereal bowls, little socks, a tiny class photograph from preschool (that’d be several years back), and, of course, Legos.
Oddly enough, the discovery of that small photograph has haunted me ever since. I didn’t know why.
Today, I know why.
I just learned that last night the precious five year old son of my wife’s coworker lost his brave battle with an illness.
It feels obscene to write anything. Anything at all.
I can’t stop crying because I’m a daddy too, and the horrors of even the idea are more than I can bear.
All I can think about is how their backyard just turned into one big empty hole in the ground.
How little Superman pajamas will now become more valuable than purest gold.
How, when they go about the rest of their lives, mechanically, hoping, quietly, screaming, they will inevitably find all the clutter that once frustrated. Like we all do.
And finding a tiny photograph that fell down behind the books on the shelf, they will beg…
and beg,
and beg,
and, heart of hearts, beg.
Let me learn from you.
Love you.
Savor you.
Bless you.
Before you go.
Let me not pass you by in quest
of some rare perfect tomorrow.
Let me hold you while I may.
For it may not always be so.
One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth.
Or bury my face in the pillow.
Or stretch myself taut.
Or raise my hands to the sky.
And want more than all the world
your return.
- Mary Jean Iron
Yesterday, I wrote of the beauty in Autumn’s cycle of death. It was sunny and brilliant. Today, the snows have come and I despise everything I wrote about the necessity of Winter.
I hate this day.
Cicle of death and rebirth…And, inside them, like the seed inside the fruit, it is grief, and cries and laments and slow time passing through ourselves like an etheral ghost, washing away the rotten feelings of lost and owness…That’s winter for. That’s why snow falls sometimes quaitley, some others in a raging storm.
They’re not our own, though through us they’ve came here.They are independent though they’re so defenless; they are their own circumstances and their own life as we are. Though they have came by us and exist thanks to us. They’re souls as we are, wise and wild and unique as we’re too. Though we don’t see it like that. They’re real as we are. And they could gone when they decide, as once we will go too.
But, as the seed inside the fruit, life sparks, dances and blossoms in them, make the ever changing experience of life, in an extraordinary journey. No matter how long it would be, no matter how short it would be. They’re, they were, they will be part of us forever: a caress, a gentle touch, a summer breeze, a falling leave, a petal of frozen snow. A dilute remembrance or a strong solid presence.
Cicle of life and death and rebirth…We¡re one with the One; were one with Life. And that, through any pain, grief or believe, it’s what really matter.
Frappé…thank you for your thoughts. I can barely keep breathing in the midst of this heartbreaking sadness. But thank you for all your words.
Oh Sweetheart…I’m thinking of you and yours…you’re an awesome friend to all. Appreciation is so often overlooked. Let’s remember how precious love is and how it binds forever. Bless you friend and thank you for sharing your pain.
feeling.
That’s the eternal cicle of life, this weird game we’re playing on.
So, we’re on. We’re on. And that’s all.
Hey Paula…thank you. Remembering with you how precious love is and how it binds us forever.
I wish I could do more for washing away the feeling. And believe, I’m so sorry about it. I wish I only could do something more.
:) I know. All we can do is uphold them in prayer.
*sigh