At first, mourning demands total preoccupation like a grueling twenty-four hour shift. A hard task-master, it begs total allegiance, binding me to its strict commands. Grieving allows no breaks, no mini-vacations, no time-off. Its consuming appetite devours all other thoughts and sucks life from any other endeavor.
But as the calendar changes pages, mourning loosens its grip in meager allotments. First, minutes slide without consuming thoughts of James and then hours slip without the burden of excruciating pain. Days drift by with no deluge of tears, and when the weeping starts again the torrential downpour lifts suddenly and blows the black clouds away.
The rawness heals, but the constant missing remains, bringing an awareness that I am functioning but not fully whole, an amputee with absent limbs forced to manage with less than what was once the norm. The heart broken into a thousand jagged forms knows repair, but where the sacred tailor stitches he leaves a permanent record of the needle’s mark.
We journey now through sorrow’s fields and catch glimpses of the sunrise on a distant shore. We long to hurry through, but find the pathway dense, requiring tedious, ordinary steps. This acute sojourn requires time. The Guide who went ahead and knows this path perfectly, each twist and turn and varied scene, each pitfall and each rugged cliff, walks beside us even now. He promises to torch the darkened way. He catches me even as I stumble. He is incapable of anything less.