Version 2
“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
~ Anne Lamott
Thursday 19 May 2016 
31/100
Things are heavy right now.  And that is okay.  I’ve been compartmentalizing like a champ.
And then I got more weight.
And then more.
And then I wasn’t so sure.
The compartments started to blend today.
Today, I felt the grief of the world.
I hurt for all the mums who have empty arms.  
[Not many know, but many many years ago I held a stillborn baby girl in my arms…I have never been the same.]
I cannot fathom holding a young one for 11 years or 18 years or 21 or 50 and then losing them.
I cannot fathom outliving my children.
Except I can.
Grief and weight
and more grief and weight.
I never want to hear the word hospice again.
Except I do.
Because saying goodbye properly is holy.
I have not wept.
Yet.
The keen is stuck in my throat.
I have made marks.
Moved paint.  Arranged words and flowers.
IMG_5261
… and held my own children.
This is what I wrote to them today after my husband told them that I was walking in sorrow.  They responded with love and support; I am blessed.
“Thank you, birds. 
 
Heartbroken for the mums.
Sad that the world doesn’t have the light of the lives of precious young ones.
Thinking about what difference we should be making in the world.  Want to spend our minutes well…
I want you guys to kiss life on the mouth.  I want you to shine.  Grief puts things in perspective.
Loss reminds me that there’s so much more than survival and drama.
Don’t waste your love and talent and minutes worrying about getting it right. 
 
For all that is good and holy, BE in your life.”
1 Feb Circles, birds and a brain full of ideas. Sometimes an image says it all. #sabbath #rainydaypages

Sometimes an image says it all. #sabbath #rainydaypages  #alltheworld

I wish for you, dear reader, all that I wish for my own.
Move through the dark woods.
Embrace the present.
Know who you are.
BE in your life,
Betsy