I often wonder.......I have many more good days than bad days these days and when those bad days come and the grief finds me I always wonder......where have you been? Where have you been hiding......because it feels as if it is always right there below the surface and doesn't take much to find my tears and the pain.......and I welcome it when it comes.......don't shy away as I cry but I don't think we ever reach the end of grief......I don't think we have a finite amount of tears in our soul that get released and then it is over........I think it is an endless kind of thing......with no bottom......no end.........and I believe it is crucial to work through as much as you can.....whenever you can.......but I think grief is one of the few emotions that helps you feel your soul.......its existence.......that it lives inside of you........grief touches such a deep part of the essence of who we are as people and allows for our human stuff to fade into the background and makes us realize what is real.......what is important......what matters.......I feel like this situation has given me a front row seat to looking in at my soul......like somebody turned the light on and I can see it clearly......and when the grief comes I see not only my pain and sadness but I also get to see my capacity to love and how deep that runs in me.......how much love I was capable of giving.....how much I am still capable of sharing.......the world is never one way......the human experience never simple.....it seems to carry two sides......pain and love........and when I get in touch with the grief I wonder where does it live inside of me....how does it fit? Where do I carry it in my day to day? How does it not consume me.......then I remember the power of the human spirit and how we can carry big things and only let enough out at a time......and put the rest away for another day.....and we can still find joy.......still find peace.........still find hope........still find love........still find optimism......still find beauty......still find all of it.........and live alongside our scars.........and as the grief comes out it brings with it old pain........old suffering.......grief I have carried for years for other people I fiercely loved and lost...........and knowing there was no bottom for that grief either......but yet I have persisted all these years......not been weighed down or jaded or destroyed by that grief......so I know this will be no different.....as I move forward......I will have things happen that prick that grief.......release the pressure and the valve......and then I will live my life in the in between......and someday the grief will find its way into the background of my life as it has so many times before, and I will find a way to more freely move forward.......as for now I am grateful for the good and the bad days, and the healing, and the power and the hope that has found my life......and my soul......
jperuso
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