Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Twisted Steel


Twisted Steel

I am a twisted, mangled I-beam; I’ve been through an earthquake and a volcanic eruption.  Here I lay all twisted and broken and still I am needed to hold up the structure.  How can I?  Where is the strength that held my head up high?  Where is the boldness that let me lead others out of the storm?  Where is the soft gentleness that allowed me to comfort?  How do I untwist and make all the pockmarks go away?  Why do I want to, being so broken and destroyed?  The raw, jagged edges abrade my heart and numb my mind.  I am no longer what I was. 

Through the pain, through the darkness, with my soul split in so many pieces -something calls, something calls.  I don’t want to hear, go away, let me go down the jumbled path to my own end - someone calls, someone calls.  Who would call me back from the edge, who would want a person so wretched?

I look down and the ragged, jagged edges of the I-beam are softened by the moss where did that come from?  As I watch I see a little green fern unfurling and I hear soft voices calling my name.  I don’t want to come back, I don’t want to face the pain one more time, just let me rust away here in my safe corner.

How do I get out of this downward spiral?  No one really understands the loss of a child, my anguish is mine, but the green keeps expanding and the voices get louder, more insistent.  I have to make another choice.  It is the power of life calling me up from the dregs, my family my friends all my clients that have hung in also through their own days of flat on the ground. 

I can never repay all the richness of the gifts given me; all I can do is turn around and pass them on.  I am reaching out to you today.  Let’s build a safe place to grieve where we can heal and pass on the gifts to all those other lost, twisted, mangled souls.