My Sea of Sorrows

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 A dear friend of mine was brutally murdered this week. I lost my best friend's brother to suicide at the beginning of the year.  I experienced the ache of losing a man I considered my brother April past from cancer.   All of the losses in their various forms have burdened my soul, each inflicting a different and unique wound in my heart.

     When a family or community loses someone of value, traditionally we weep, we mourn, and "bury" our loved ones with our sorrows.  After that we are expected to move on, carry on, live on with our lives.   I have had trouble with this notion because I have discovered, particularly this past year, that the icy fingers of pain and the chill of my losses have melted into a sea of sorrows.

    Some days I find that my sea is calm.  I go through the ritual of my day with little to no disturbance.  Other days, there are waves in my sea.  Sometimes they lick at my ankles.  I feel their prescence at my feet but when I look they have gone.....but I know the are there because I feel the dampness on my feet and the wetness on my cheeks.  Sometimes I wade into thoughts and feelings of my loved one.  I feel them surround me and though it was cold to step in to the waters the love surrounding me makes me warm. 

     Sometimes  I run into the surf looking for what I have lost.  I look so intently that I forget my surroundings only to feel the crash of the wave that puts me under unexpectedly.  I find myself overwhelmed, unprepared for the flood of emotions that overtake and drag me under.  Sometimes there are people there to save me from drowning.  Sometimes I have to wait to be thrown back onto the shore.  Alone and cold.  Frightened and gasping for air.  Realizing that there is a thin line separating my state from theirs.  Knowing that out there lies the riptide of emotion that will take me if I care to submit.

     I look out at that endless sea of sorrow and try to understand its mystery.  The whens.  The wheres.  The whys.  The hows.  Realizing that there are no easy answers.  Knowing that in my sea of sorrow it is a matter of navigation, watching the turn of the tide, and finding the way to make it back to the shore.