Love Not Expressed

 If your loved one is trying not to drown, don’t ask them what they’re learning… 

Modern day proverb (just kidding, I made it up)

Everyone wants to make sense of grief. We want it to go away as quickly as it came and to have a reason for being here in the first place. We don’t want to watch our friends cry for months on end and we want them back to their usual selves as soon as possible, because really they are just more likable that way. We want them to hurry up and figure out what they’re supposed to learn so we can all move on. We want them to find happiness in themselves, their identity in anything other than what has broken their heart so we can all be free of the pain. But if it were possible, the love wouldn’t have been real in the first place. Everything we truly love becomes a part of us. Being a mom, a lover, a friend, a daughter or a sister- if our identity doesn’t somehow get tangled up in those things- are we doing it right? 

Grief has no timeline. It’s intention is not to make sense. It is a burden to bear, a mountain of “love not expressed,” an ocean of tears- that threaten to drown you and at no point should you hear shouting from the shoreline, “what are you learning?!” There doesn’t have to be some greater purpose and if there is, we are under no obligations to find it as we struggle for air, we have only to breathe. Just take the next breath, step, prayer- and try to hold on for one more day. 

“…weep with those who weep,”  and they will learn how to swim to shore.