Sometimes Pain Can Be A Companion

A loss, however great or small, is often replaced by a pang you carry around. You become familiar with it and sometimes, just feeling that sting can make you feel not quite so lonely, not quite so bereft. You turn to it and just the act of feeling it makes your loss a little less.

But one day you wish it to be gone. You don’t want to feel that pain any longer. You pray for the Lord to take it from you. And yet, there is a little fear there. Will my loss be complete if I no longer feel the pain? Is that the end?

And you can’t imagine that you could hold your memories without the pain there, stabbing you in your chest. You see evidence in the people around you – there they are, remembering and not crying, talking and laughing without holding a hand to their heart where it hurts so badly.

And so you cross that threshold, to see if it can be. Laughter without pain, fondness without sorrow. Yes, perhaps it will come true on this slippery strand that we call time.

You open your hands full of glitter and tears and let them go, watching to see where they will fall.