Broken
I stand on the shore
Waves and wind my companions and,
For a moment, the world is still,
Past and present in equal measure.
Then for a second a neurone fires,
A flash of remembrance
Throwing me into a place
A wish never to be.
I feel I am standing up to my knees,
Wading slowly and clumsily
Through a swap of grief.
Past as a fond memory,
Present as a harsh painful reality.
The emotions like the waves,
Pound my heart and flood my thoughts.
As if a trail in the woods becomes
A fork in the road.
Yet I have no choice, cannot take my
Path of least disturbance.
We are all pushed into the darkness,
Must navigate this stony track,
For which there is no map.
But the unfamiliar and dark
Will become less daunting as the miles pass.
There is no return to the first path,
Still as the passage of time processes by
The new path very gradually,
Oh so slowly, starts to lighten.
The landmarks are the same and
The path still stony beneath my feet,
Yet the present slowly creeps into the past.
The grief digs sharp into my heart,
Knowing I shall never occupy a space
And hear you laugh again,
But as time passes
the pain does become more bearable.
There is no getting over a loss,
No moment that suddenly it doesn’t hurt,
No time that a second passes and immediately
They are no longer missed.
This doesn’t happen, but when the initial,
Hard and brutal shock,
Ever so slowly, starts to soften,
We are given time to reflect.
Given a gently growing space,
In which to hold and nurture the memories.
The beautiful gift we were given,
By having our loved one in our life,
For however brief,
And for knowing them, our lives are richer.
Copyright © Emma Goodridge-Hobson | Year Posted 2023
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