Grief | #5

by Elouise

Grief wave
Waves of grief on a gorgeous spring day. Unannounced, unexpected, healing and welcome.

#5
Grief
Washes my face
With tears of sorrow

It started about 9am this morning. My heart went into irregular atrial fibrillation when I got up. Thanks to Lucy, I didn’t faint. No more long pauses in my heartbeat. I did, however, feel weak, frustrated and hungry.

Just as I was finishing breakfast, my heartbeats still too fast and irregular, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus [listen and watch here] came washing over me from the radio. I dissolved into tears. Not howls, but tears of sorrow for injustices done to my body. Some not chosen by me; others my weak efforts to lead a ‘normal’ life.

Tears don’t alarm me. They comfort, soften and connect me with the rest of the world’s sorrow and pain. I’m not on a little protected island. I’m part of a vast global sea of childhood PTSD survivors dealing with health issues—to say nothing of emotional, relational and spiritual damage.

I don’t need comfort, other than the comfort of grieving openly. The comfort of not having to explain, defend or define my grief. God knows all of it. I grieve a sliver of what hides beneath the tip of the iceberg.

Tears melt a bit of the ice in me. They are, in fact, the only way I know to recognize, appreciate and join the sorrows and joys of my brothers and sisters.

Thank you, my friends, for reading. ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 April 2016
Photo from griefdigestmagazine.com