Forget-Me-Not

The impermanence of you eviscerates me.

That I should take a single additional breath, linger here a moment longer, is a possibility I entertain only in the darkest night when my deepest fears rise close to the surface and knock on the door of consciousness. 

Is there an age when the missing is overwhelming, when there are shadows of things and people we loved everywhere and we are haunted by the specter of memory? When you have gone, will I remember your easy laugh and the comfort of your voice? Will I grow strong enough to weather the onslaught of waves or the strength of my pain without your gentle fortitude and knowing encouragement?

There are vast distances between us now, but if I close my eyes and picture you, I can feel the ribbon that binds us. It is born of laughter, story, and the courage we share in choosing love.

It is a gift to love you. And the price I will pay for the loss of us will be gut-wrenching grief. Where will I find you? In dresses with small, floral patterns? In raucous laughter in inappropriate places? When the wind spurs the fall leaves to dance recklessly through the evening sky? Will you be there when I watch waves break on the shore, reminding me that they, too, must return?

Will I find you here, between stuttering words and fragmented feelings? Will I feel your hand guiding my heart, reminding me to look for beauty, to search for truth in pain? When I fall, will it be the echo of your voice encouraging me to rise, reminding me that resilience, too, is a gift?

It is all so fragile. We are all so fragile.

And yet, in a hundred more lifetimes, I would find you, knowing that grief is a worthy price for the infinite grace of loving you.

Stardust

There are fissures everywhere; the sunlight warms the barren soil, pleading it to live, reminding it that before it was here, it was stardust, floating in the infinite with everything that has ever been. 

There has been so much pain and so much darkness and no choice but to plod ahead, but now there is the hint of a defrost, of a thaw and the hope of spring. There is beauty and light and the grace of dawn and that which was frozen sits in the potential of the things to come; there is a whisper of life, of green things and petals and astonishing color. The new roots grasp desperately to the soil, interconnecting, holding one another as they stretch upward toward an unknown next.

The world holds both grief and joy for them in equal measure. The grief will drown them. The joy will buffer them. The roots must grow deep and interconnect with those nearby. The storms will come and they will hold one another. Drought will come and they will share what little bounty they possess and they will mourn the loss of those who do not make it. The price of their love will be agonizing grief. But they will pay it again and again.

They will grow and flourish and there will be Aprils where the sharpness of the flowers will catch the breath of people who walk nearby. The people will say: "if that isn't nice, I don't know what is" and they will remember for a fraction of an instant that they, too, are stardust. 

The growing things will sit through hard, barren winters and summers that bake them brown. The moon will wax and wane and they will sing with the crickets in the long, eternal nights. And one desperate spring they will no longer flower and their roots will grow tired and they will droop in the heat of the summer sun. And in the next winter, they will sigh and they will quietly smile at the young ones nearby. Their roots will grasp desperately for one another and sing with words of gratitude for the time given them. It will never be enough.

And at last, they will feel the hint of the sun on their petals and the grace of the wind through their leaves and the friendly muttering of their neighbors and they will mutter one last, small song. There will be grief and mourning but also celebration. They were first stardust and for a moment, they were here. And now they are stardust again, with all the things that have ever been.