The rain weeps

I'm sad today.

I'm not clinically depressed, grief-stricken or anything else dramatic and noteworthy. I'm sad. It's my birthday and everyone who loves me has sent cards, gifts, social media posts and other affirmations that I exist and I am loved and appreciated.

And I'm sad today. The lovely extended summer is about to give way to heavy rain. The harbinger of winter to come. For the moment, light rain weeps as I cannot.

I've been sad for a what seems like a long time. It's only been about 16 months. Ever since…

Ever since I realized that Dad was in his final days and Mum was teetering on the brink of random. Random thought, random emotion, random behavior.

Dad's gone now. He didn't sing to me today. For the first time in, well, ever. Mum was good this morning. Wished me happy birthday, talked about my life. Talked about missing Dad. Me, too.

Then she wasn't good. Lost and wanting to go 'home.' Home to her safe childhood place. Home to 'that safe place' were Dad lives. Sad when she remembered that Dad doesn't live and that empty apartment is home.

Nothing is wrong. The earth rotates, we live. There is joy.

I'm sad today. The rain comes slowly and gently. It weeps as I cannot, and I welcome it. I've shed tears, but I know they are naught compared to the volcano of sorrow that is sealed within the cold control that will shatter when duty is done.

If pain is weakness leaving the body, and grief is pain leaving the heart, then the sorrow in my soul has no analogy. When the time comes, sorrow will howl with the windstorm and its evermate, rage, will shriek. I don't know when or how, only that it will come.

Until then, I'm sad. The rains weeps for me.