Walk Of Hope

Today I participated in the Walk Of Hope. It was my second time out and I raised $300. It was emotional for me. September in general can be a melancholy time. September 20th is when my mom died. It'll be 12 years this year. In a few more years after that, she'll have been dead longer than I ever experienced her being alive. That's a sobering thought.

I have a pressure in my chest and a small pulsing knot lodged in my throat. Crying seems appropriate, but for now I'm going to write. I can cry later. And when I do, I won't feel so compelled to type anything. Tears from grief have a tiring effect. They lull you into a sort of complacency after you've fully let go. I suppose that's what tears are for.

I'm going to make myself a little vow. I'm going to try never to qualify the pain of someone's loss by how long ago it was. What is gone is gone, but love is love, and time means nothing. When someone experiences a loss they pretty much have no choice but to manage their pain. But ask anyone who's lost a loved one, or hell, lost their family from a divorce, or lost a relationship that really mattered. Years later you can still tell they feel it, you can see the cracks from where they've glued themselves together.

What I hate in contemporary society is this loathsome concept of moving on. Those who know nothing insist it means you should no longer care. That is impossible. Hearts remember everything, cliche though it may be to reference the heart, which is merely an organ. But it's what skips a beat, misses a beat, pounds and aches over loss. It's where the pain hurts.

I'm still mourning. I'm aching over losing someone I've not had in my life for 12 years. It causes me pain all the time, more often than I ever let on. I have my life, my home, my fiance, my cats, a real decent set-up all things considered. I work, I see friends, I enjoy food, I am happy. And behind it all, shelved within easy reach of my memory, is the grief.

This wedding has been bringing it out more often. Sometimes I'll sit here, like now, and I'll become overwhelmed with sadness I can't place. And when I really think about it, I always know where it comes back to. Unaccountable waves of sorrow arrive from one destination.

So I'll let myself think about my mother not being there to lace up my wedding dress, see me walk down the aisle, hear me exchange vows. Doing the walk today was a good feeling, but it was very sad for me. So now, at 2:30 a.m., I'll feel it.