The sharpness that bleeds

A reflection on loss and quiet loneliness.

↑ Excerpt ↑

This will be the first Christmas I spend alone without either of my parents in my life. I struggle to know exactly what or how to feel, beyond a surface level acknowledgement of the emotional pain. It hurts like fucking hell. I’ve orbited The Sun on this spinning cosmic top of water and rock for fifty years. I’d like to think time has afforded me a comfortable buffer of wisdom, experience, and heartiness—a shield to weather any storm.

Truth is, I feel lost and helpless. I grieve, balanced on a knife edge between the life where I know I’m strong and will be ok, and a surreal emptiness their passing has left behind. Like circling too close to the event horizon of a black hole, facing a reality that’s inescapable. They were the strongest people in my life, and they were always there. At times—however misguided—it felt like they would always be.

Now they’re both gone.

And the sharpness of that edge, bordering that cold hard reality, bleeds my heart.

Grief is a cruel, heartless, and cunning interloper. The initial onslaught after a loss is crippling and relentless, and permeates every facet of our life. We feel it in our bones, our hearts, our very cells. When we quit paying attention—even briefly—looking for a respite, it punches us in the chest and knocks the proverbial and literal wind from our lungs. It reminds us of our humanity, and batters down the walls of our strength with that same powerful, inescapable reality.

Even after the immediate rawness dissipates, grief lingers in hiding just beyond the periphery of our consciousness. We’re only aware of this silent stalker when it strikes, bubbling up to the surface of a wound we thought was healed enough to live our lives again. To breathe. To laugh. To even smile. We drop our guard, only to get chest punched once more.

All it took for me was to glance at the photo of my parents on our window ledge, nestled amongst the warm glow of Christmas lights, for that cold, dark emptiness beyond the event horizon to again suck the wind from my lungs. A cruel reminder of what is lost. My strength tested, my walls battered, my shield cracked along the middle. And through that crack, my heart exposed once more.

This holiday, the silence will be deafening. There will be no happy wishes spoken on those morning phone calls—the same joyful and loving words spoken to me every peaceful, quiet Christmas living at home. All I have left are the echoes reverberating in that still emptiness.

Never again will I hear their beautiful voices; see their eyes light up with joy when I open my first gift as a kid—or walk through their door as an adult; feel the warmth of their arms around me.

And this Christmas, all I have are their smiling faces framed upon my window ledge.

When I cry because I miss them, the tears will sting just as much as they always do. When I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again, there will be no answers. When I tell them I love them dearly, there will be no reply. There will only be those echoes in the emptiness left behind.

When the silence is again replaced with the noise of the everyday, I will press on. I will rebuild those walls, reforge my shield, and continue fighting like hell to live a life to make them proud of me. A life pursuing the happiness they always wanted me to have. A life that would make them look at me and smile—like their photo in the glow of these lights, looking back at me.

I know I’m strong, and I know I’ll be ok. I got that from them. But for right now, as grief emerges once more from the shadows, I will be sad. I will miss them with every fibre of my being. I will visit them where they rest, kneel and place my hand upon the plaque, and tell them how much they’re loved.

And for now, on the sharpness of that thin grey line I walk, my heart will bleed again.