Caves and shadows and darkness and not being able to see around you. It could be frightening. Or it could be maybe okay.
We live in a hurry up culture and we live in a culture where you’re supposed to be happy and positive and everything is feel good. With an occasional momentary break for a worldwide tragedy but life gets very quickly back on track and the world goes on. And maybe that’s good and necessary but maybe we need to re-think this happy, happy culture. Maybe we need to give space to the particular darkness that comes about as people grieve.
My daughter had a conversation with me shortly after Chuck died. I told her I was just in this dark place and she, very wisely, said that maybe there’s value there in the darkness. Maybe the shadows and darkness weren’t to be feared. Maybe beauty could exist in that darkness.
In this past 15 months since he died, (and oh how it freaks me out to write that), I’ve thought often of that conversation and I’ve realized how correct she was. And is. With a note that, of course, you can’t live forever in the darkness etc.
But.
When grief hits, as it will, and that darkness comes, as it does, and we lose our vision, as we do, then maybe, just maybe, our other senses become heightened. Maybe our hearts see more because our eyes are filled with the veil of tears. Maybe we trust our instincts more deeply because we know, (or at least I do for me,) that our brains aren’t working as they once did, fogged as they are with grief.
My eyes don’t see-there is darkness all around. So I stand still to get my bearings and I listen more acutely. I wait to feel my feet solidly underneath me before taking a step, my hands out in front of me, searching for something to grasp. My sense of touch becomes sensitized as I strive to identify my surroundings. It’s all very tentative and I’m learning to trust my other senses and they become stronger as I rely on them. When the day comes that I emerge from this darkness, from these shadows of grief, I know I will be deeply aware of myself and life in general because I gave the darkness the time it needed instead of struggling against it and fighting it.
This daughter of mine who is now on the road with me for six months. She’s pretty damn smart.