Told by: Lindsay

Grief, an incredibly heavy word that means something different to everyone it touches.  People push it away, tamp it down, hide from it, or lose themselves in it.  I carry the ones I’ve lost close, tucked away in that special place in my heart.

My grief is still raw from my sister, our family, losing Christian.  It’s a hot, jagged wound right in my core.  Sometimes I swear if I touched my skin on my chest it would burn from the fire of my broken heart.  Five months seems a lifetime, like he’s been gone forever.  Five months is like a second, the shock of his loss still so fresh.

There is no sense to grief. No handy illustrated manual telling us what to feel, when to feel it.  We can only ride the waves out, wait for the storms to pass.  Cling to our loved ones that are still with us, hold the memories close.

My best friend and her husband buried their child.  I cannot imagine the loss, every parent’s nightmare come to fruition.  She loves that baby, loves her so much that she is forever changed. She is so gutted from losing Mary Beth; she’s trying to stop other women from going through the same thing.  Some people are resentful of this; they think her an angry misguided person.  But she is none of the things they accuse her of.  She is just a mother, going on forever with a piece of her missing.

We grieve because we love, deeply and irrevocably.  We love without restraints, and love doesn’t change because a person leaves us.  If anything, it becomes deeper, more precious. It’s all we have left of them, the love we shared.  We all go on, broken and bloody from loss and pain.  We try to make sense of something we never will, until we’re gone too.

The surprise of living when they are gone, the laugher and smiles, and hope for tomorrow are what keep us plodding forward.  Through the thunder rumbling in our hearts, the rain pouring from our eyes, the wind blowing wild our thoughts, we find love and support.  We find our best friends, renew the bonds of family and friends, and stave of the loneliness with the only reason we live.  Love.

…I carry you in my heart.