What grief is like - the journey

[This quite accurately sums up all that I've been feeling in the last 6 weeks, I think. It's more of a poem, and while outside of my normal writing, I like it. I guess I needed to write this more than I thought I did. It was a journey for me, and fitting to end the way it does since it is All Saints' Day.]

What grief is like...

Currently, it feels like injustice.
...and injustice feels lonely.
That is not to say that I am alone. I am not.
I am surrounded by people I know love me and support me. I know that.

But, grief feels lonely.
To sob while your heart breaks,
deep, heaving sobs while sitting in your car
sitting at a stoplight trying to catch your breath

that is lonely.

To turn to the radio for cheer or comfort,
and hear a line like "your world's not falling apart,
it's falling into a place"
is like a fresh slap in the face
courtesy of your bright, shiny Christian station.

"stop holding on and just be held" is the new "let go."

Grief isn't simple. I wish it was.
I wish it was as simple as letting go and being held.
But, it's not. It's a knot.
A knot of love that is somehow a memory
A memory of love that once sweet tastes acrid in its wake

Where once, in the freshness of death, I could see clearly
The purpose of life, the purpose of love - it was all in its place
Now, the further we drift, the more fog overtakes me.
All I know is this life; how could I understand what it means to live in the wake of loss?
All I know is this earth; how can life exist when the love that was life is gone?

What I once knew, I do not know.
How to see God,
how to hear God,
how to find God in this darkness -
It is no longer clear.

The foolish sing of God's simplicity.
He is not so simple.
He is both / and. not either / or.
I understand the difference between cause and allow.
But, why does death lead to life -
but here, life feels so much like death?

What is grief? what is life?
and why do both feel like a grind?
wrung out
strung out
hung out to dry
tired of the try.

But still,
we rise.
we shine.
we press on.
we forge ahead.
we will it.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
but sometimes, I crawl.
sometimes, I cannot stand, and I kneel.

The valley
of the shadow
of death:
it is dark.
But I fear not evil,
Your rod and your staff: power and might,
Your presence: Light.
You are with me.
So, the darkness trembles...

and I press on.
I forge ahead.
Thy will becomes my will.
Your saints surround me.
Your kingdom comes.