If you live long enough you will lose people you love. Death touches all of us at some point along the way. We never know when loss will sweep into our lives, and while were doing our best to make ends meet, it's easy to let the important things remain unsaid.
It's human nature to want to protect ourselves from pain at all costs, but grief doesn't give us the chance to duck and avoid the blow. It consumes us and then spits us back out, burning through our old life to make room for the new reality. We feel the pain because we loved them, because we missed them, because we want them back; but it's possible to get trapped in the denial, to reject what happened, to put on a brave face for others and say we're doing fine.
We can push the pain away, but it will be waiting for us. The best thing we can do is to sit with our own pain and breathe our way through it.
Because, you see, when something bad happens that's big enough to make you question your entire life, all the other hurts that are hanging around, all the wounds you've collected during your lifetime, will come out of the shadows and ask to be healed too. It's entirely possible to squash your pain down and carry on with your life, but one day it will catch up with you. One day a little tear will appear in the blanket and then, with an almighty rip, all your crap comes tumbling out. This is a good thing in the long run.
notes on unraveling the heart
