I’m new here. To being amongst the amazing writers of Still Standing Magazine. To grief, well, not so new. We’ve been certain enemies for nearly four and a half years now. He came sneaking in as I birthed my middle child silently into this world September 21, 2009.
He took the place of her. Swapped at birth. Grief for Hannah. Hannah for Grief. And you know what?
He doesn’t leave.
He’s shameless.
He’s a beast.
You can’t kick him out the front door, get him off your back, break up with him or even toss his belongings on the front lawn. Nope.
He’s here to stay.
At first he was over-powering. He took and had complete control over my mind and emotions both day and night. Day in and day out. Month to month. He was much more powerful than I, though I worked so hard against him. I worked OH SO HARD to fight him and one day I guess you could say we made a sort of “truce.” The kind of treaty like that of sharing a bedroom with a sibling in your youth. You take some painter’s tape and mark a line along the center of the room, dividing it. You inhabit your side and I’ll inhabit mine. But as children often do, you jump that line sometimes. Let me tell you, it can be blind-siding.
So grief gave me his presence but he also gave me a present. We all know of the ugly shoes. We all wear them. They hurt your feet. They don’t fit right. They are hideous to look at and often make others shy away. Well, I suppose I’ve worn mine in some and began decorating them over time. They are a little prettier now, a little easier to approach, less offensive, less hard to put on each morning. I guess…
I can proudly call them mine.
We each have traveled similar yet different paths. We all have loved and lost and know exactly what comes with that. We all know grief and we all know the shoes. I like to think that most days grief stays silent and my shoes fit just right, though it has taken some time to get here. Hope has shone her light and lets grief lie in the shadows. The gift of art has painted its joy upon my shoes. It’s a perspective I am happy to look at life from because, if anything, it makes the pain of it all just a little less.
Hannah was born in the back storage closet of an Emergency Room. They had no Department of Labor & Delivery. Our care was neglectful at best. Some days I wonder how I ever survived. Some days I wonder if grief will just jump that line and take me again. Out to sea, out where the stillness begins thrashing and I am left alone once more in its grip. I remind myself, hope is my friend and light is much more powerful than darkness.
May your light shine.
filtering through the blinds
an overcast of shadows
formed ruthlessly
in my soul.
I found a stranger
to call friend
to live with
in the immense darkness.
shouldering
the burden
without blinking an eye
as I stumbled
as I crawled.
the ugly shoes
the beast
the unspoken and
spoken
grief
that would most
certainly
consume me.
yet somehow i
survived.
am surviving.
through the poignant
words whispered
to my delicate
heart.
you are not alone.
You can read more about Hannah (and me!) on our site Somewhere Over the Rainbow, www.sotrshop.com, like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/sotrshop or follow the bird on twitter at www.twitter.com/sotrshop
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