The melody of the singing below pushed its way into her room, tried to enter her soul and soften the hardness there. Dispel the darkness. But Mei Lien pushed back. She didn’t want to feel happiness. She didn’t want to accept the light. Somehow she knew that once she comprehended all that she had lost and all that she’d endured, the pain would be too much to bear.
When I wrote this scene, I remembered my own times of personal grief when I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, in order to keep from drowning in despair. It also brought to mind one of my favorite impactful quotes from Barbara Kingsolver's book, The Poisonwood Bible: “As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.”
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