nine. ♡
Grief, no matter what causes it, is like a poison -- it can render you completely immobile, snatch the words from your mouth, seal your lips shut. Sometimes, it's even hard to find your breath. If left alone, it festers like a cancer, to the point where it's all you can ever seem to think about. Grief swallows you whole. And eventually, if you let it, it comes to define you.
Two years ago, my husband James slid on a patch of ice while driving, and skidded across the road into the oncoming traffic in the opposite lane. We were in Birmingham visiting his family for the hols. If his car had turned in the other direction, he might not have died on impact. But his life was taken that day, and I was left with memories of a goodbye kiss that I hadn't known would be our last.
My grief had me in a headlock. It suffocated me every day. But as of a month ago, I came to understand that grieving someone who was no longer with you and allowing it to take over your life was an unhealthy way to live. That negative emotions could be so unbearably parasitic. What I should've done was not miss what we couldn't have any longer, but cherish what we did have. To let the good outweigh the bad.
It would be an insult to his memory to erase him from my heart, because when you lose someone, all you have are memories and pieces of what they've left behind. But I no longer wish he was here with me, and now I have my closure.
James isn't here anymore, but I've found new meaning in my life within my sisters.
And that fills me with love, and with hope.