Echoes to the Mountain

Herself speaks. 

In the past fifteen months, I've sent two elderly and ailing dogs over the bridge, and tended to an ancient guinea pig as he breathed his last.  For numerous reasons, I had to resign from the first job I'd ever had after 23 years, and to take a new job for which I have no experience and which is not in my chosen field (though I do like my boss very much, which has helped).  I ferried my second child off to college nearly 600 miles away. Now tomorrow, my Cherished Friend is moving over 300 miles away. with each new transition, I hear the echoes of the previous ones, and my heart breaks anew.  So very sad.

I am reminded of a passage from the Series of Unfortunate Events:

There is a kind of crying I hope you have not experienced, and it is not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don’t know and even the people you don’t want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face. ― Lemony Snicket, The End

I realize, though, that the cumulative, echoing grief I carry is mine alone. No person should be asked to witness the raw emotion I bear, and I cannot request it of anyone.  I shall wrap my arms around myself and move forward. And I will find comfort in my solitary bereavement, for it reminds me of the joy I have had.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. -- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Some day, perhaps soon, I shall take my sorrow out to nature -- to the desert or the mountaintop -- and release it there.  For Nature, in her eternal silent vastness, takes pity upon each minuscule evanescent human, and placidly absorbs every agony of the heart.

Picture copyright 2012, 2014, Mediocria Firma. Used with gratitude.