Give

They say that the horrors of life, the true horrors like removing the tube that keeps your child’s chest rising and falling, can bring out the best or the worst in people, can reveal one’s true nature, will utterly strip you bare.

I can tell you that it’s true. Deafening, decimating, tragedy, the kind whose blows never stop coming, the kind from which one emerges desperate for death strips you. I don’t think I’ve ever been one for pretenses. I’ve always been a bit to blunt for my own good but this, this is different. I’m laid bare beneath the scrutinizing gaze of my own eyes… I’ve been dragged through the muck of my own thoughts, my own mistakes, my own soul and I’m still tied to those wild horses. Who am I? I have no freaking clue…

A lot of the time I’m barely aware through the haze of loss and pain. I’m slowly emerging, back into the world. It’s jarring, frightening and so overwhelming. When did it get so bright and loud and busy? I’m so tempted to retreat. I’m fighting that particular battle daily. I want to curl back into the black hole inside me where the only sound is my sobs. My therapist likens it to the life-long hearing impaired receiving a hearing aid or implant and suddenly being assaulted by the sounds of the world. She says many such individuals turn their devices off preferring the silence. Will I turn it off?

One of the most vicious blows of grief is the realization that it isn’t going to kill you. My conscious mind didn’t even know that was my expectation but when I slowly started to confront the reality that I was still alive… that I was going to be alive for the foreseeable future the reality kicked me so hard I barely moved for days. I’m going to live through this… what a betrayal. 

  

As I grudgingly, painfully awaken I blink in the blinding light and see patient, loving faces there. There are people who haven’t given up on me. There are people who have quietly, patiently walked the path I’ve crawled ignoring the snarling and biting, believing in me. There are people who have expected nothing and given whatever I would take. Such patience is certainly not deserved. I am amazed that such love continues when I am so very unlovable, when I have less than nothing to give, when all I can do is take… reluctantly at that.

Maybe, someday I will have something to give. If I ever do I intend to follow your example.

Until next time.