Pain at the Coming of the Sun

Tears from earth,

Joy from heaven,

Experience of dearth,

A precious spirit leaven.

Tears for grief,

Emotions of the cross,

God for relief,

His comfort for your loss.

A life gone...

Tears, ongoing, had here, for love, to learn.

But joy in heaven for their return.

Our loss; their gain.

But, still, tears.

Look to the cross.

Go to its foot.

Pour yourself out.

God meets you there; right there.

“How can it be that you relieve me, O Lord?”

Just for this moment: relief.

Stinging pain, I must return to Him.

Aching disdain, what am I to learn?

God’s comfort is our repeated need.

***

When nothing can bring them back – that surreal feeling of never knowing them again – that perilous gnawing of never having them back – those moments when this reality swoops and makes its dark home. That’s life at its worst; has to be.

Nights bellowing into a pillow, even if they were fleeting departures into madness, or that’s what we thought, with thoughts of madness attending, we might wonder what kept us safe through the night. Morning came and sometimes we were sullen. Other times there was a sweet victorious emptiness. Also, joy at times – the strangest peace.

That Horizon – the Unknowability of What Comes

Grief is a numbing, jutting pain. It raises itself into a plethora of mystery and we may never truly know what is looming over that encroaching horizon. The horizon is never too far away – it is a scandalous thought, that horizon. The horizon is not dark, per se, but the sheer unknowing enlivens many jagged degrees of panic.

That horizon that looms – that is almost certainly breaking over us – is that waking feeling, out of dream and into a nightmare.

The unknowing is the frightening thing. We are far from feeling protected when darkness intervenes upon the light.

Jutting out without a warning is the strangling and suffocating reality. We miss them ever so dearly, but when life is being sucked out of us, it’s plain scary; not to mention the sorts of sick thoughts of death we personally procure.

***

Grief would not be so bad if it was only that we missed that loved one now gone. There is a dark and sinister side to grief – the depression, the anxiety, the helpless hopelessness – that’s the scariest. The rebuilt identity is a construction taking, in many cases, years to complete. Grief may last just as long.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.