Telling 4
Twelve Months Later
The story is too long to tell in a Hub. Besides, the journey isn't over for me. Yes. I watched my child die. Something inside me, intrinsically joined to her has been sliced open. Can I call it a wound? Who wouldn't.
Thing is, I am learning as my steps take me closer to that gateway from which none shall ever return, that not everything we fear, not everything that traumatizes us, not everything that would be considered life altering, life changing, or life hindering needs to be any of those things. Will the pain of losing her bring her back? Will a stifled inspiration aid those still around me? Will a mutated view of what continues real help anything?
I lost her. She's gone, but not forever... just to the dimension I walk in. I will see her again; and when I do, nothing will separate us. Therefore, I would be untrue to her memory and to the virtues that held us from collapsing in those months before the demise if I gave up now, if I caved to the demons that taunt me and would have me believe none of what we knew, what I still know is worth knowing.
Time stood still for us, for an open window in space. During that opportunity, we ventured verbally into the 'what-if's' and 'if-only's' recognizing that during no season of either of our lives has any of the postulations we ever stood upon ever bent to our volition; instead, we were directed toward an unbeaten path, on a new road, to the place where we would be stretched beyond our comfort and left to contemplate the circumstances that actualized rather than the fictitious situations we would have thought up for ourselves. Learning that we have no power, except the power to acquire knowledge and gain insight from experiences, was the greatest gift.
Some gifts, we do well to lay aside, but this one gift that I have been distancing myself from, simply because the turbulent anguish bashing me from the inside out refused to disengage vicious claws, thereby liberating me to push off and away from the droning chatter unceasingly infusing my brain with reasons to doubt, to hate, to become bitter, to distrust that which I hold most dear, and lay down my strength...hid behind the shadows, waiting for the vexing charges to wear themselves thin, waiting for the moment when I would remember that to come alive as a result of the pain may have a greater impact than allowing myself to be stricken and detoured into a slumber, into a sleep.
I live. Because I live, my child lives on, in my memories, in my experiences, in the life lessons learned while she suffered tormenting physical afflictions in her bed. I live; and, because she taught me more in sickness than I learned on my own in health, I can now give of myself, in understanding, in compassions that are newer to me, leading me to apply action that no longer seems loathsome to me, moving me to reach out in mercy, for the benefit of anyone who will, just because I still can.
Death is not the end. Death is the beginning, for the person who dies and enters a realm that defies mortal description and expectation; and, for that one who is left behind to mourn, but not so the pain will dull a zeal for life, but so that the pain will energize, enthuse and reassure. The manifestation and vivacity to breathe a new breath into life will make the difference that promises that one who you loved will never be forgotten, never be lost in vain.
Blessings to you all.
