Image: Time’s Grace © Jan Richardson
It’s the dailiness of grief that I find most daunting. Morning after morning I wake into a world that does not have Gary in it. I will never find him making breakfast in the kitchen, waiting to enfold me as we begin the day. I will never sit down across from him at the table. I will never call out to him from my studio as he works in his studio. I will never walk into the house and hear him say, Hello, Sweetheart! I will never walk out of the house with him and move together through this world, these moments, this life in the ways we so loved.
And still, it is in those same moments that grace finds me. It is in those same moments that solace steals in, working its way into the everydayness that can be so daunting but in which love still lives, waiting to enfold me as I begin the day. Sitting itself down across from me at the table. Visiting me in the studio. Welcoming me every time I walk into the house and blessing me every time I leave it. Breathing with me as I find new rhythms, new patterns, new doorways in every single day.
Blessing for the Dailiness of Grief
Sorry I am
to say it,
but it is here,
most likely,
you will know the rending
most deeply.
It will take your breath away,
how the grieving waits for you
in the most ordinary moments.
It will wake
with your waking.
It will
sit itself down
with you at the table,
inhabiting the precise shape
of the emptiness
across from you.
It will walk down the street
with you
in the form of
no hand reaching out
to take yours.
It will stand alongside you
in every conversation,
nearly unbearable
in its silence
that fairly screams.
It will
brush its teeth
with you at night
and climb into bed
with you
when finally
you let go
of this day.
Even as it goes
always with you,
it will still manage
to startle you with
its presence,
causing you to weep
when you enter
the empty kitchen
in the morning,
when you spread fresh sheets
on the bed you shared,
when you walk out
through the door
alone
and pass back through it
likewise.
It is here
you will know it best—
in the moments
that made up the rhythm
of your days,
that fashioned the litany
of your life,
the togethering
you will never know
in the same way again.
But I will tell you
it is here, too,
that your solace lies.
It will wait for you
in those same moments
that stun you
with their sorrow.
I cannot tell you how,
but it will not cease
to carry you
in the cadence that has
forever altered
but whose echo will persist
with a stubbornness
that will surprise you,
bearing you along,
breathing with you still
through the terrible
and exquisite
ordinary days.
—Jan Richardson
from a forthcoming book of blessings
Using Jan’s artwork…
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Using Jan’s words…
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