Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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.

1 comment:

  1. the truth is heavy; so heavy; but you kept walking; that is all that matters love . . . xoxo

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