Griefs

Herself.

It is inevitable, I think, that after traversing over five decades on this planet, I should accumulate a certain amount of grief.

Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go. ~ Jamie Anderson

At this moment, there is a multitude of small griefs shadowing me. I feel them nip at my heels and demand my attention as I try to go about my ordinary business. They are assorted sizes, shapes, and colors: actual griefs, potential/future griefs, aged tiny griefs that are usually quiet but have a sharp tooth. Griefs of bypassed hopes and silent wishes. Some griefs so tiny as to be scarcely there; other griefs larger, patient and silent, waiting.

Sometimes I only notice the crowd of them when a single grief is unusually vocal. Sometimes I sit alone with the group of them in the evening in the backyard. Sometimes I try to drown their voices by consuming excessive carbohydrates. Sometimes I assuage their thirst with a few tears shed in solitude.

What I would like, I think, is to be gathered up, without criticism or reproof, in arms warm and strong enough to encompass me together with all my griefs. We could rock the griefs to sleep for a little while. And I would be content.