"Because grieving is drowning -- suspended"
Death is a scar that marks us all. We wear it on our hearts; hidden by layers of blood vessels and tissue, it lies on our central organ a memento mori. Death and life seperated by inhalations, as cells are reborn and depleted in the steady rise and fall of our breath.
I have two peers who are currently in the midst of grieving. One just lost his mother to a slow battle with terminal lung disease and the other is currently living with his dying mother-in-law. Their grief is so loud it beats in their ears with the same thrumming pulse a child about to be discovered in hide and seek feels.
I don't understand death. Like my peers I have also known it intimately and tragically...but I still don't understand it. The death I have seen lacks the dignity and peace Sunday School painted it to be. Its visceral, desperate, and cruel. It leaves a web half woven and the survivors crawl about trying to patch a pattern they do not have the instructions for.
The scar is not just on our hearts. Creation itself is cracked; each blade of grass flitting in the wind, the rough grains of sand that rub each other raw, and the waters that strain against the shores, feel death. The immortal rendered mortal does not simply forget its heritage.
For once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. And they played where they should not have, and ate what was not theirs, and a pain filled their chests and they were changed. And we were changed. And it all changed.
I too have a thrumming pulse in my head. Grief that screams at me above the crowded noise. My chest heaves in a pain that feels like it could rip me in two. I feel the scar. A rough scar with two perfect punctures. For once upon a time a snake coiled up around us and slithered things in our ears and as we listened it slyly sunk its fangs into our chests, and we were changed.
