Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
I once knew a man. He felt like home and I liked to be near him. He was sharp, spiky, his defenses were strong, there was no way in. No way past the armor that protected him. He liked to be near me too but he hurt and he threw that hurt out into the world, not caring where it landed or who it hit. I stopped liking being near him.
And then his father died, and piece by piece his armor fell away, the spikes ground down, the sharpness softened and then I felt like home to him too.
We would see each other occasionally, but being in different countries, different worlds and with my defenses still ready to rise at a moments notice, it couldn’t last. I still think of him. Home.
When my own father died, I remembered this man again. After 6 months of existing, grief wrapped her arms around me and pulled me under, I needed her, I yearned for her and so I surrendered to her. I felt her brush aside my defenses, my spikes, my reasons for protecting myself against the world. As I rested in her embrace she showed me what was real, and what wasn’t.
She visits still and makes me rest when I get too confused about how this world works. She pulls me back, breaks my heart over and over again until the brittleness gives way to softness and I can breathe again, unbound and unprotected, safe in my rawness.
She reminds me that all of this ends. This achingly beautiful, short, sweetest-upon-sweet, painful life ends. Everyone and everything we love will fade from our lives and all of the defenses in the world can’t stop that from happening.
She reminds me that keeping out the love in the world serves no purpose except to cause myself hurt. All the defenses that I can muster won’t save me from the stark reality of loss.
She makes sure that I know that there is no hope of escaping death, no means of preventing it. This all ends and there is nothing I can do about it.
As I curl up in her arms, the absence of hope gives way to something else; Here and Now. A place where there is no need for hope, no need for sharp spikes. We think that we are protecting ourselves from hurt, we’re not, we’re protecting ourselves from love. We’re protecting ourselves from the very thing that we have been put on this earth to do, to live, to love. To look with eyes afresh on our brief existence and to decide to love with hearts wide-open.
This is the gift that grief brings with her, a force that surges through you, demanding your surrender, welcoming you into her arms where she strips you bare, breaks your heart and sends you back to the world new, raw, open, softer, knowing, opening your eyes to what is real, what is here, now.
Let her break you, every time.