Just to Walk

Grief is heavy

and not in a figurative way;

It is literally heavy, heavy,

heavy.

So heavy, that in the first days and weeks

after your tragedy

it is even hard to walk.

Your body feels so heavy

you have to will your feet to walk.

You have to think hard to

even get them to move,

and when they do it is all they can do

to merely shuffle.

You can still remember that day,

that cold winter afternoon

When your friend took you out

for a walk

In the early days of your grief,

After your children lost their father…

When you couldn’t even notice

the crisp February air

Or the feel of sunshine on your face

Or see the bare tree branches

Because all you could think about was

how hard it was to walk.

When did the idea of lifting one foot

 and putting it in front of the other

over and over again

 become so foreign? 

Mesmerized by how something

you had been able to do

for almost your entire life

had become so very difficult..

So, very slowly, you put

one foot in front of the other

and you walk.

You carry that heavy, heavy weight

 that is your body

While you wonder how your body,

which only weeks before

 had been running and jumping

and laughing and playing…

How had it become

so very heavy?

Tragedy will do this to you.

Grief is heavy.

So very heavy.