G is for..

Emotions are the elements of our lives. We float on the ceaseless tide, sometimes bobbing happily, and more often than not, swept underneath the current until the world is obscured by bubbles and debris. Elation, sadness, anxiety, contentment.. they are all necessary shades of our experience.

And sometimes, grief descends, dragging with it a host of other emotions which must be endured as a stream of visitors just at the time when we’d rather be left alone. I have witnessed grief in my loved ones, staring inward through its bulletproof glass, seeing lips move without producing words, feeling the chill of helplessness. What I saw was simply the frost, a herald of the great winter storm inside, never truly understood.. until my own loss enveloped me.

The permanence of loss needs a champion. Grief comes as a tide to sweep us into an acknowledgment of all that was. Feared emotion, yet it is a grey-blanketed saviour from indifference. Scribe of significance, grief records the loss of loves, granting a soul left a little lonelier the balm of recognition.

Death in all its forms is no surprise. Even oblivious in happiness it is understood that an end waits. Our fickle hearts must move and change, never lying in the arms of any emotion too long. Grief must leave its scars beside the imprints of feet and fingers and the exquisite carvings of joy. In this life I shoulder my humanity, and you yours, and we may nod, knowing, at one another walking on the mortal road, since we neither of us have the wings of angels.

G is for grief.

May we grow in grace.