Grief is as Infinite as Love

I was following a twitter feed last week that had several comments regarding grief. "Love doesn't die that quickly", "Love never ends so neither does grief", and my favorite, "Grief is as infinite as love". These poignant remarks touched my heart because I would like to believe that when you fall in love with someone, that love, in some way, last forever. Relationships may end for a various number of reasons but the true love that was put into those relationships is real. I was talking with someone yesterday who is still a little distressed over a break up. He did tell me that if circumstances were different. (of course) he would have gone back to the women he had fallen in love with in his past. I think that statement embodies that love never ends.

Grief is so powerful because you have loved someone from the depths of your soul. Love can give us the security, the safety in knowing someone feels the same way about you. Love offers us acceptance of who you are at our inner most level. When the relationship ends it can feel as though you were dropped into the ocean without a lifejacket and need to swim back to land. The more intense the love, the farther to swim to shore. That water ebbs and flows as well. There are days where you feel like you made it and, out of the blue the crashing waves have thrown you back to the depths you thought you had navigated.

When you finally make it to shore, you are definitely not the same person who landed in that body of water. You have almost drowned, you have been tossed around by huge waves and had to escape the unexpected dangers of the sea. The problem with grief is that the water is alluring, so we seem to get wet again. Hopefully we can grab on to a life preserver to help us through. I have made it ashore, but I have either been thrown in or jumped into the sea of hurt many times afterwards. I have played the "what if" game, the "rewrite the future" paper as well as many other scenarios. Sometimes, I have been thrown back into the water unexpectedly; the sting of a song or unexpected photo. Regardless of how it happens, what once brought joy, now brings sorrow.

I am so grateful that my life preserver through the last several years has been God. Without my faith, I really don't know how I would have maneuvered the storm. I am a different person, in a way, because that is the nature of grief. I do feel that I have become a stronger, more confident person. I also find comfort in the fact I believe that not only can I still trust and love, it is because I have trusted and loved, that I can love again.