Grief Does Not Have an Expiration Date, Because Love Does Not Expire

For a good chunk of my life, I haven't had the words to quite describe the pain of grief, and I understand at this point, it is just love. Not subdued love, or love that needs to be forgotten. It's not dust covered, and it burns as resolutely as the day the match was lit.

Our grief does not care about the need to be fixed or counseled. It does not have an expiration date, because love does not expire.

Despite the depths of my own healing journey, I still hold a space for that grief, and although it doesn't reveal itself as frequently as it used to, it knocks my heart just as vigorously since the day my love had no where else to go, and each and every time it does, no matter how far apart, I will give that grief the space to exist, and I will fall to pieces and pick those pieces back up again until next time, because I do not see myself in this life not loving who I love, time is not relevant, you cannot reason with the heart.

I truly believe in our ability to be a better human. To be sincere in our efforts of compassion and our ability to make amends, whether that be with ourselves, or with the people we inadvertently, or purposefully, cause(d) grief. To extend our sincere empathy to the nature of loss and all who experience it.

No matter how empowered, enlightened, and high off the supply of life we are, may we always remember to hold a space for those who are in that moment where they are coming undone, the undoing that's to come, and the undoing that has ceased.

This isn't a lesson taught by the calmness, it is taught by the loss in the storm, and after the storm we need to lend ourselves to those who need help picking up those pieces, and yes, until they come undone again, because this is the natural ebb and flow of life...of grief.

I appreciate every beautiful expression of love I have been allowed by life to experience, and grief pulls me back into that love, so I will sit with it for a while, and honor its venerated place.

We all walk a path that nobody else is aware of. Our eyes have seen the monsters and the angels, our bodies have felt the pain and the joy, and for some of us, our senses have experienced the true face of what death looks like in those last intimate moments of a person's life, and it is absolutely mind altering.

Do not be ashamed of your journey, there is meaning to your experiences, ugly and beautiful, every last one. Sometimes you will have to walk alone in your path back to yourself.

However, sometimes, if you allow it, you will not walk alone so long as you still give love a chance despite its reminder of your capacity for pain, as it fills those spaces seamlessly. I hope you can choose to love again, as this dichotomy is what makes it unadulterated and exalted.

Artwork

Brittany Rose, Grief: The Final Act of Love

Watercolor, Charcoal, Inks, Alcohol Inks, 14"

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