Oh the ways...

Photo: A Time to Mourn by Sarah Osborne




Oh the Ways by Me

Dave Matthews just came out with a song called "Funny The Way It Is". I really like the song and words. Until the last few days have those words become particularly relevant.
Mourning doesn't involve simply a death.
It involves the loss of so many more things.
We mourn, we get angry, we learn to cope, then we live again.
Mourning becomes a circle of life within the circle of life.

What do we mourn?
We mourn the loss of a loved one - human or animal.
We mourn the loss of love.
The loss of health.
The loss of youth.
The loss of lust.
The loss of...

You miscarry a baby you have wanted for a very long time,
you long for one that has not yet been given life,
you lose the love you that was there but really wasn't,
you are not offered the life you thought you should have.
You lose a pet that has been with you for 16 years,
You lose a idol that has become part of your entire life - unaware.
You break a vase that has been in your family for years,
you "kill" a plant that was part of your mothers.


Along with the mourning, we also get angry. We cry, we curse,
we fill our souls with all of the why's that come along.
We fill our hearts with an ache that seems as if it will never depart.
An ache that completely sucks your life out of you.
Sleep can be significant therapy.
Care for yourself becomes unnecessary.
Patience becomes slim if not obsolete.
Your eyes ache from the pain that flows from your heart and then becomes a lack of tears.
Your stomach turns at a simple thought.
Why?
Why?
Why?

I can only believe that we are given hardships to make us stronger.
Although we may feel like life must be at an end, we begin to realize that
we are actually at a beginning.
A beginning of something new, something stronger, something easier,
something more important than that loss made itself into.
I have to keep that light into view no matter how dim.
I have to know that things will always work out.
They always do.
I have to know that the ones who matter are there
and the ones who don't care don't matter.

I have to believe that I have people around me that love me.
I have to believe that love is real and trust it.
I have to remember that one mistake and many abuses does not equal
an inability to trust myself or trust others.
I have to remember that God made me exactly the way He wants me to be - not to be what someone else thinks I should be.
But who I am - simply.
I have to believe that I am able to love and be loved in return.
That should never change.
Mourning turns to a new way of thinking.
-Or not.
You have to be the decider.
You have to determine if you can accept loss and move forward -
Forward onto to something new.
Something new.
Something.

Nothing is death.
Something is life.

I will always choose life.
I will make sure that those who depend on me will choose life as well.
Even if that will cost me everything.
That is what love and life is...
Everything.