When you saw the world as beautiful
then watched it tear right down the seams
Nothing is ever as beautiful
As you hoped for it to be
When You Saw The World As Beautiful
Tag: grieving
All Of A Sudden I Hear Your Voice
Flipping through the stationary pictures
Smelling the dress you left behind
Reading the words you left on paper
Collecting the scraps of what is left of you
All of a sudden I hear your voice
Radiating from the pinpoint speakers of my phone
I hear your laughter
I hear you giggle
Tears streamed from my eyes
But I must say
It was such a
Treat
#FOWC
#Treat
What I Really Wish, Is To Have You
Finally unpacking my life from April
Going through the nik-naks
Smelling your favorite dress
With no hint of you left on it
Just the aroma of packing boxes
Hint of dust
Filtering among the cherished
And the heartbroken
Pictures that I saw the day we laid you to rest
Evidence that you loved us all so much more than we knew
Undeniable proof that you longed for us the same way
We longed for you
I hold each piece of your jewelry
As if
Somehow
If I could just gather them all
I could put you back together again
The necklace you wore the day you left us
The matching ring
The turquoise
The gold
The hearts
The stones
Holding each piece
Like each piece holds a piece of your soul
Maybe if I could just soak all of it in
I could have you back in my life
An old fashioned camera
Rolls of film
How I long for each roll
To fill me with memories I never had
Memories of your life that I never got to see lived
There is nothing more that I wish
Than to feel connected to you
Wishing I could wear every piece of jewelry at once
Wishing I could see life through your eyes
Read all the words that were written
As you bore your soul
All I have left are your pieces
Your pages
And what I really wish
Is to have you
She Told Me To Love Myself For Who I Am
I dreamt of my mom for the first time last night since the news of her death in April.
The thing is, we have both always believed in the afterlife. Despite what we believed in as far as religion was concerned, we both very strongly believed that our bodies had a soul, a spirit, a life force, and that, after death we would be just as much alive as a spirit as we were in a physical body.
When my mom died, so unexpectedly, I held on to that belief. I thought to myself, “she was my best friend, nobody knew me down to the depths of my soul like she did and no one knew her as much as I did. If she came to visit me after death, I would know. If she wanted me to know something, she would find a way to tell me. If she wanted to be near me, I would feel her. There is no possible way that her spirit could be near me without me knowing.”
And then…
A week passed by and I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I didn’t feel her. I didn’t smell her perfume, I didn’t become overwhelmed with her emotions, I didn’t dream of her, I didn’t get goosebumps, or feel her near me.
I found ways to rationalize it to myself. “Maybe she has unfinished business elsewhere? Maybe she is angry with someone and is wreaking havoc there? Maybe she is in some type of transition?”
It all might seem silly to someone else reading this. It might seem completely insane to someone who doesn’t believe in the afterlife. But, I had to have a reason….
“I would know if she was near me, why haven’t I felt her near me?”
You hear throughout life, from other people who have experienced loss, that they feel their loved one around them all the time, that they feel them like an embrace from the surrounding air. They say they feel their loved one walking beside them throughout life and during all their important experiences.
“where is she then? Where is this unquestionable feeling?”
I spent over a week in a room with her casket. Everyday, all day, beside her, and I spoke to her. I searched for her. Any sign of her. I was grasping at straws.
My mom was an extremely strong woman, filled with fire, energy, and a love for life.
I thought, if anyone were to be a spirit and want to make her presence known, it would be her. She would find the strength to knock a cup down, she would.
Through all of this, I experienced the normal stages of grief. Over and over in short cycles.
Mostly
DENIAL……ANGER…DEPRESSION… ACCEPTANCE
Waves of cycles
I began to become overwhelmed with this sadness and fear.
“What if I don’t feel her, because, there is no afterlife? What if, when you die, you are just gone, life is over, there is no checking in on loved ones, there is nothing but -dark-empty-nothing?”
I didn’t want that for her, I can’t rely on the belief that there is nothing after death.
Well, two months later
I dreamt of my mom for the first time since she died.
I can’t say one way or another what any of that means. I can’t say it’s her visiting me, I can’t say it’s anything more than my brain thinking of her while I’m asleep. I can’t even say that I feel her around me.
But…
For my own grieving process.
For my own closure.
For my own ability to find peace in losing her.
She sent me a message that night.
She told me to love myself for who I am.
She told me to take the insecurities and F*** them all.
She told me to enjoy my life and be happy in the body I’m in.
She told me to stop stressing over the little things in life that don’t matter
She told me to always remember the memories, but to walk over the burnt down and broken, and move forward.
I can’t be mad at her for that
Forgive me
Forgive me LORD
I do not think I have truly prayed to you
Since the day that you took her home
It is not for lack of love
It is not for lack of want
It is not for gain of hatred
It is not for gain of loss
Maybe I am not ready yet
For the floods to pour in
Maybe I am breathless
For the gasp of surprise has taken me
Hostage
Maybe I am at a loss for words
Because the disbelief has me gawking
I want you to know LORD
I still trust in this path you have laid out for me
I trust that everything you have done
Is never without reason
You LORD
Have my heart in your hands
And I believe you will
Mend me
Guide me
Heal me
But
Forgive me LORD
I know that I have not prayed since
The day she flew home to sit by your side
I know you have seen me try
But they were prayers of the skin and not the heart
I think
I am a little lost right now LORD
I am a little broken
But I love you
And I trust you
To make me whole again
It was Beautiful when you played it out in my head
Maybe I’ll take a page out of your story mother
It was beautiful when you played it out in my head
Green backdrop
Sun shining
The smell of pine
Or maybe forest
The smell of bark
Aroma of nature
Because you were a wild woman
That wanted to be set free
Surrounded by only those you loved
Because who would travel out to the middle of nowhere
Except for the ones that loved you just as hard
Your dress
Flowing and crimson red
Because you were not the delicate white flower
That these occasions paint people to be
You were fire
Ignited by your love for life
Fueled by your love for laughter
You glowed bright
Because the last thing you ever wanted
Was to fade into the crowd
Diamonds embedded in white gold
Laid upon a bed of moss
Because satin pillows were too fragile
For the way you planned on spending your nights
I know you mother
You would of walked that path solo
To the man who held your heart
As we all gazed upon your beauty
But I, mother
I didn’t want to walk that isle lonely
I am not sure how I will face that day
I will be filled with happiness and love
But I will also be broken
How can I hand this man my heart?
He will feel the deception
He will feel it light
For it lost its fullness
When I lost you
How mother?
How will I have the strength
To put on that dress
The strength you had in crimson red
I will crack in eggshell white
How will I hear the echo of the song?
The song of a story that is about to begin
When all I will hear is a reminder
Of when the echo of your laughter
ceased to exist
I will imagine you there, mother
I will save you a seat
I will hold your hand
I will save you a dance, mother
Because that is all I can do
That’s all that I can
I will wear crimson upon my chest
To give me your strength
I will place the rainforest upon
My table tops to represent
Freedom
To represent
Life
I will surround myself with the people
I love
and the people that love me just as hard
I will fill my life with laughter
Because that is the only way I will be able
To keep you alive in my life
I will try not to taint every happy moment
with the sadness of my loss
I will try not to grey out every sunshine
With the rainclouds of my tears
But I don’t think my future chapters
Will ever be as bright, mother
I don’t think my story will ever be As beautiful
as the story you painted me
Because every chapter I write
from Now on
will be void of your presence
Will be void of you voice
Will be void of your smile
Will be void of a giant piece of me
Life will not stop for a life lost
In one phone call, my world came colliding down
“she will miss you” – he said
As a crackle in his voice slipped through the telephone waves
Thousands of miles away
That heartbreak only took a millisecond to deliver
Even at that moment
I felt emptiness
Yet disbelief
There is no way that the fire in her has been distinguished
There is no way that the light in her had gone dark
With closed eyes
And a deep inhale
I cannot explain what I feel inside
The closest person to me is no longer existent on this earth
My best friend is no longer just a phone call away
The only person that made me laugh from my gut is gone
She was the one and
only one
It’s preposterous the way one’s world completely gets turned inside out
Like the universe just reached in and
pulled my last laughter right from my mouth
It’s insane how my world just took a standstill
But nothing around me stopped moving
Life will not stop for a life lost
The world does not stop turning just because mine toppled from its axis
Other people still need me
although I have not much to give
My future calls me
Although all I want is some time to breathe
Responsibilities demand me
Despite the fact that my brain wishes all too much
Just not to think
I still cannot fathom that you are not just spending your days
On the other side of the world
Awake while I slumber
I cannot understand
That I will no longer see you online
And write you just to bother
I will miss the
“hey baby”
To my
“hey mama”
I do not know how to say “goodbye”
Mother
Because the world keeps spinning for me to move forward
But my heart keeps reminding me
That you are no longer moving forward with me
I may be nothing but a stranger
To the girl I met today,
I want you to know,
that I feel your torment.
In the way that you evade my eyes
in the way that your eyes gloss over
with the pink tinge of a girl that has cried
from the full of the moon
till it blessed us with its smile.
I know you are hurt.
I want you to know that you are not alone.
the crackle in your voice
caused by sobbing,
a throat, exhausted by the howling
I know that you are void of all happiness.
I have been there too.
your anger is too full right now,
your sadness is more
cavernous than the oceans combined,
but I am here
my small talk;
my attempts to distract you
from the agony you are feeling,
my venture to convince you that
I am right there beside you
I am trying to let you know
I have felt it,
I have lived it more than once,
and I am alive and well today.
everything will be okay.
I know
I know that you will not believe me
just like I didn’t believe myself.
I know that there are no words,
no utterances, that will make you believe otherwise.
at least not until the anger subsides
But to the girl that I met today,
I just want to tell you how beautiful you really are
that his actions do not define you.
his deceit is not a repercussion of your worth.
the moment you heard the truth
that pit in your stomach, hollow hearted, emptiness
you feel
will not be what you will feel forever
I know
I want to embrace you
but, I am but a stranger
there is a boundary and a wall
and I know you will cringe to hear my love story
but
to the girl I met today..
you will be okay.
sincerely,
a wonderfully mended heart
Never Silence the Madness 