There are simply no words in the human language to describe the feeling when one moment there is a life that contributes so immensely and immeasurable to the definition of your world and then the very next moment that life is over. Death isn’t designed to give us time, to prepare us. Life doesn’t teach us how to live without someone we love.  We spend our lives creating attachments, loving connections, and interweavings with others. Then death thunders in filling every corner. In a single heartbeat, dissolving what you’ve known to be true. Leaving you in anguish. Alienating you in a unrecognizable world.

Hallmark says  ”but you’ll always have your memories deary.” Memories are for our minds. What about our heart and soul? How do they live on?

As my mind threatens to break my soul for it cannot accept nor comprehend the separation, something else begins to appear. To my surprise, standing quietly at the edge of  the horror,  patiently waiting for the anguish to be hushed, moving so gently as not to intrude, an absolute sense of peace sits down next to the anguish. And of course my pragmatic mind is all over this stranger. Interrupting its exquisite song like halting a symphony mid crescendo. Yet the undeniable sense of this peace is too powerful.  The absoluteness of its exsistence makes it impossible for my mind to argue against it. So I let it in, for the moment. I choose to believe in it. And the comfort is divine.

For me, after a loved one dies, the peace doesn’t come and stay indefinitely.  However, it does share space in my life with the pain. 

Carrie