The Ambiguity of this Grief

The ambiguity of this grief

Specifies no definition of relief

Tears as they roll down the cheek

Sadness for loss ahead hits its peak.

Mist in the eye

A puddle on the pillow

Wow, our baby will die

Seas of sadness that billow.

The Rock of our faith is our base

His peace we no longer need to chase

Despite the wrangling of grief

Somehow, in that, is relief.

***

A state of confused negative wonder fills the space in the head and in the heart for the moments where head is still on the pillow. Tears seep down, over the nose, into the other eye and down onto the fabric. All is physically still. Even the heart, as it beats, cannot do anything. All is static, though the expression of the soul is manic.

There is little space for the unappended joys of a life that has only simple problems – a life we all live the majority of the time. The joys are intermittent, but the cloud’s truth covers the sun on an otherwise overcast day – a day lasting and lasting.

Life goes on. It does. Life continues to go on as the world turns precisely according to the will of our sustaining God. And this grief, itself, is sustained by the loss ever before us, as if it had already happened, but is, in all reality, still some time off.

We are counselled by the Spirit of God, to plan for and prepare, and ponder the coming day. But there is only so much preparation one can make. Nothing can prepare the heart for what it will feel. Nothing can advise the mind regarding the thoughts that will break through; our attribution of them.

In all this is the dualist reality: there is peace, but there is an absence of peace. There is relief, but there is, in another way, no relief (yet). These are eternal moments enshrouded in life experience under way. Nothing can be so important as resting in these events of experience, to consider them, to reflect, and to learn, at our own pace.

***

There is sadness for what is coming. The freight train has entered the tunnel. Its light bears witness to what is unmistakably apparent. This fully laden rolling stock rake is about to run us right over. There is nothing that might otherwise be done.

But we are comforted by love. And love is all we need.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.