STRANGE

As the years have passed since you died, the changes in me have made me stranger and stranger.

The first few years were simply full of pain suffering and an intense longing to have you back.  Learning to breathe again was a major achievement.

Healing all those connections to you continues to this day.

The first change I noticed was how little tolerance I had for chit-cha, seemed insipid to me in the face of what I wanted to talk about. 

The next thing I noticed was that no one wanted to hear about your death.  In fact, as soon as people find out I am a bereaved parent, the start drifting away, that is still true.

Certainly, my priorities altered dramatically.

The profound loneliness and aloneness has altered me and taught me much about me and everyone’s humanness. 

It would be easier, safer and nicer if I just walled myself off or permitted myself to be bitter and cynical, but I have made different choices, to honor your life and my love for you.

I take my strangeness with me wherever I go and I get strange reactions from people, mostly they don’t know what to do or say, most folk turn away.

What impact I have, I can’t say, but to do otherwise feels like a betrayal of all you have meant to me and a discount of my grief in your profound loss and all the hard work I have done to have a rich and deep life without you. 

Arleah

Oct 2019