Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life - Posts Tagged "sadness"
Loss
It is always heart-breaking to lose someone we love. Death is inherent in life, loss something we all must bear. We know this. We may embrace it with love and sadness, rail against it or shy away from it. But it is inevitable. Yet the pain is indescribable.
How much more so when the person you lose is still alive? When the smile is still, and joy has gone from your day, replaced by a longing for the slightest sign of life? When the bright mind touch that sparkled is withdrawn? When the light of their eyes is misted and dim? When their hand in yours is cold and unmoving?
The heart still beats, the breath still flows, but their presence is gone. Their voice is silent, and voices are the first thing we ‘forget’.
With that silence, something dies inside, foundering in a morass of pain and confusion. And with every day, you die a little more.
The pain is physical. There is a tight ball in your chest, a tenseness in the throat as you hold back tears that you dare not shed, a twisting in the gut. But it is not just physical. That is the easiest part to bear. That you can ignore.
The twin ravens of thought and memory perch on your shoulders, contrasting the now with the then. Joy with pain, hope with despair, laughter with tears. You learn about extremes.
Death we expect to encounter. This death-in-life is not something one can prepare for.
Nor does it heal. Not completely. Not without painful scars tracing fear through the soul. And it is cumulative. The more one loses, the harder any loss becomes. One is always waiting for the next, and the pain clouds your emotions and responses.
One can seldom open oneself fully to joy or to love because the spectre of loss touches everything with fear. It is rare for you to come across a person who can transcend those self-imposed barriers, seeing beyond them to the heart of you, understanding that reserve is not coldness but a shield. Someone who can open your heart again to joy, to laughter and to beauty. And once the barriers are down it takes strength to hold fast in the flood. Even rarer are those who can, like Pandora, open that sealed casket, releasing its demons, yet still see Hope at the end.
Now imagine that this is your son, your child, lying in a coma, for weeks without end. No parent, no mother, should lose their child, it matters not how old they are, they are still the babe that grew and kicked in your belly, still the toddler with trusting eyes. You watch, helpless to help, unable to hold them, unable to reach them. Fearful of what the future may bring. Afraid they will not wake, afraid you will not be able to say all the things you wish to say, afraid they will wake and still be lost.
For perhaps the only thing worse than losing something you love with all your heart is to lose it and get it back broken.
Tonight is a bad night, haunted by the shadows of loss.
How much more so when the person you lose is still alive? When the smile is still, and joy has gone from your day, replaced by a longing for the slightest sign of life? When the bright mind touch that sparkled is withdrawn? When the light of their eyes is misted and dim? When their hand in yours is cold and unmoving?
The heart still beats, the breath still flows, but their presence is gone. Their voice is silent, and voices are the first thing we ‘forget’.
With that silence, something dies inside, foundering in a morass of pain and confusion. And with every day, you die a little more.
The pain is physical. There is a tight ball in your chest, a tenseness in the throat as you hold back tears that you dare not shed, a twisting in the gut. But it is not just physical. That is the easiest part to bear. That you can ignore.
The twin ravens of thought and memory perch on your shoulders, contrasting the now with the then. Joy with pain, hope with despair, laughter with tears. You learn about extremes.
Death we expect to encounter. This death-in-life is not something one can prepare for.
Nor does it heal. Not completely. Not without painful scars tracing fear through the soul. And it is cumulative. The more one loses, the harder any loss becomes. One is always waiting for the next, and the pain clouds your emotions and responses.
One can seldom open oneself fully to joy or to love because the spectre of loss touches everything with fear. It is rare for you to come across a person who can transcend those self-imposed barriers, seeing beyond them to the heart of you, understanding that reserve is not coldness but a shield. Someone who can open your heart again to joy, to laughter and to beauty. And once the barriers are down it takes strength to hold fast in the flood. Even rarer are those who can, like Pandora, open that sealed casket, releasing its demons, yet still see Hope at the end.
Now imagine that this is your son, your child, lying in a coma, for weeks without end. No parent, no mother, should lose their child, it matters not how old they are, they are still the babe that grew and kicked in your belly, still the toddler with trusting eyes. You watch, helpless to help, unable to hold them, unable to reach them. Fearful of what the future may bring. Afraid they will not wake, afraid you will not be able to say all the things you wish to say, afraid they will wake and still be lost.
For perhaps the only thing worse than losing something you love with all your heart is to lose it and get it back broken.
Tonight is a bad night, haunted by the shadows of loss.
