The shadow of death

I understand wailing. When the agony within requires a pressure valve release. I understand wailing.

When Damon died I never conceived that any moment could get worse. I never imagined that it was possible that agony could be deeper and wider than that moment but it is, it does. The ghost of life that I live now echos back all the moments of happiness in screams of pain. I feel as if for every ounce of perfection I once lived I must pay back in pounds of misery.

Will and I grope for each other in the dark. We sit in stunned silence as the horror washes over us time and time and time again. He’s gone. How is this possible?

There are moments, though I can’t remember what they feel like now, when I almost feel like maybe I can do this. Maybe I will survive after all. All the oxygen from that breath is crushed from my lungs by the next crashing wave that plunges me ever deeper and seems to hold me longer.

Such agony should not exist. Such depths of emptiness should not be. How is it that I am still breathing? How does my heart still beat? I marvel at my physical body’s ability to carry on in the midst of such debilitating suffering. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder why there is not gaping wound in my chest. Why are my lips still red?

What does my soul look like to God? Is it ripped and torn and shattered as I imagine it? Will He ever be able to heal me?

Part of me desperately wants to be healed. Yet the concept of happiness feels so foreign, like something conceived of in a dream, its memory fading.

I saw someone laugh the other day, a pure open uncontrived laugh. It hurt. I wondered what that felt like, to feel happiness without the shadow of searing pain. I don’t remember.

A Psalm keeps running through my head, over and over. Even when I can’t think there it is.

Yea though I walk

through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil

For you are with me

Your rod and you staff

they comfort me

I always thought this psalm was about David’s fear of death. Maybe it is but I know David saw death. Two of his sons died before him. He knew about the shadow of death. He knew the depths of the black. I keep thinking ‘walk through the valley of the shadow of death.’ I’m living in death’s shadow.