Time Marches On

Looking backward is not advised, and yet each morning I look back over my Facebook memories, pour through the pictures and find myself amazed at how fast life moves along and what has transpired. Past moments on the farm very often catch me by surprise, bringing with them all the feels of yesteryear; bittersweet, poignant reminders of another life...

Materially speaking the farm was everything I'd ever wanted but had never dreamed would be mine. Simply stepping out the back door took my breath away. Three barns and a house surrounded by apple orchards, three and a half acres of land on a country road, and a wood burning stove. The kitchen was spacious, the living room big enough to hold our ever expanding family whenever special occasions arose. We spent countless hours outside in the yard, on the back porch, or gathered in the living room. Picnics, parties, holidays, we did them all...  And then the bomb dropped and the bottom fell out of my world. 

Grief is complicated and complex with threads of varying thicknesses and colors, twisted and wound into a multitude of indistinguishable knots. For months I picked numbly at knotted, outer layers, terrified of what lay beneath the surface, often setting the entire mess aside. I did all I could to live a normal life in a world that had suddenly shattered. Death leaves a visible gaping hole. Abuse leaves an unseen, shredding of the soul. Outsiders witness the abused gasping for breath, but they do not see the wound. The gasping renders others clueless. Rather than come alongside the breathless, they offer empty platitudes or avoid getting involved altogether... 

The best way to untangle a knot is to follow one colored strand, tediously and methodically unwinding it from the others. Eight years. I've been untangling threads, cords and strands for over eight years. It's a wearisome task.

(And here my thoughts were interrupted by someone I love. My phone was ringing and on the other end someone who intricately understands the complexity of grief, abuse, and knotted threads. If only (another fruitless hope)... If only I could wind the hands of time backward, to erase at least of portion the heartache to which my not-knowing-better has contributed. Today I know something different. Today I would give different advice.)

Can I untie the tangled, haphazard knots in this string of life? Can all the pain of yesterday be woven into hope and beauty? This is my earnest prayer.