We can’t hurry up grief. But we can grieve with a patient hope, for the day when the grass grows back.
Death hardly seems like the best topic for a month committed to starting.
Starting something.
And yet. When someone dies.
When someone leaves.
When the job is gone or the husband is gone or the son is gone.
We start something.
Something else.
Something new.
Something hard.
Something beautiful?
Death.
Divorce.
This is the time. Because there is no choice.
But to start.
Again.
A new normal.
A new (not shiny new, but battered and bruised) new.
Last week a friend of mine sent me a picture of her 16-year-old son’s grave. She finds comfort in visiting and what struck me was the dirt.
Everywhere. Still dirt.
We think it’s been so long. But it’s barely a year.
And the dirt is still fresh.
No grass. No flowers.
Just the evidence of broken bodies and broken ground and broken hearts.
Three years ago, just months after moving to a new state, my husband of 15 years revealed himself to be a stranger.
Like-oh-my-gosh-how-could-I-not-have-known-stranger.
Day after day, new revelations and I was on this wheel that was spinning and spinning and try though I may, there was no way off.
And no way out.
I was in a movie.
“Sleeping with the Enemy.”
Except he wasn’t my enemy. And well, ya know, we weren’t actually “sleeping “
Like.
Ever.
What followed was hard and long and ugly but we, the mamas of mamalode, are not about placing blame and so I’ll jump to the punch line.
We divorced. And we dug up the ground and we buried the death.
And there was only dirt. For most of the past 3 years.
Only dirt.
But the grass is starting to grow.
I see it in the faces of my children. I see it in their eyes.
And they will be my flowers.
We are a society who wants to bury up death and cover up death and move on.
Quickly.
From death.
Mamas. Let yourselves grieve. Let others grieve. Embrace the dirt, knowing it’s the only way back to grass and flowers and beauty.
And one day you’ll wake up and you’ll know.
You are ready.
It’s time to start something.
***
About the Author
October 2014's theme start something is brought to you by
Headwaters | Blackstone
To learn about sponsoring a Mamalode theme contact: info@mamalode.com