The waves of emotions are starting to become more of a slow-rolling tide. There are ebbs and flows, of sadness and of okayness.
They correlate with the strangest things...like the dish soap that sits on our kitchen sink. Shawn got it for pennies on clearance, and he gave me some because it was so cheap (*heart thumps quickly* I guess I like practical thoughtfulness). And some other things even stranger. A close friend getting engaged washed over me, bittersweet. Seemingly person after person starting a family with their love, or growing the family they have with their partner. And me -- I'm tossed in the waves, trying to keep my head up and to learn how to swim again.
Today I found myself challenged.
A dear sweet friend, the happiest of people you'd ever meet, lost her brother yesterday suddenly; this within the same year of losing their father. The thought of it brings me to tears. My being in my own clearly different pain, it seems only something darker can draw out my empathy right now. Quietly but surely, the echoing thought crept in, resonating in the friend telling me the very words on my heart: "Hold those you love close!" (Emphasis mine.)
Then this afternoon another friend shared quite vulnerably on her newborn photo business' instagram account. She had to cancel a handful of appointments with families due to the unexpected miscarriage of her own baby at 4 months along. Again I was stunned and shocked at the thought of such pain. Perspective. As I read, it struck me that she wrote about a very thing that had been salt in my wound. However, instead she had grace that I've been struggling to grasp at with weary hands, let alone voice with such courage. Her very work and passion surrounds her with life and newborns, a potential wave of her pain is around every corner. And yet she said to her it is “a constant reminder that there is still light and still hope.” Those words knocked me over - my self-preservation - and rushed around me, then receded.
Often times to see that hope is alive is a choice. Many of the friends who are getting engaged, married, or having babies and more babies -- they haven't always felt hope and light, at least not the stories I know. So I'm challenged to find it in myself not only to have grace for when someone else's life looks better than mine, but to find a way to take joy in their victories and their joys. If empathy is truly something I value, I can't just turn it off here. It is just as necessary to wave it in the face of brokenness as we dance for joy over the more; the fruition; the abundance; the love.
At the end of the day, it doesn't make sense sometimes: why do dads have to die, babies not get to breathe a breath on this earth, and romances that are sweet be severed? It can feel like we're losing, and at what, - we don't even really know. But both friends spoke something which points to the truth, one which makes the very pain exist, and that is this: we have won everything because there was love. When nothing else makes sense, the love does.
