Wednesday, July 8, 2009

One of the beasts nipped the left leg of my jeans and tugged.

Grief can destroy you - or focus you. You can decide a

relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in

death, and you are alone. Or you can realize that every

moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize

at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just

lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each

day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the SACREDNESS

of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to

see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just

watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or

washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric

bill. It was everything, it was the WHY Of life, every

event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery

of existence is the love you shared sometimes so

imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper

beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off

your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees

not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what

preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one

day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness,

to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.


Dean Koontz. Odd Hours.

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