Sometimes I’m so sad I need a moment. It doesn’t last a minute. My eyes rim with tears. They don’t hit my cheek. I hear my thoughts, collect myself and say, “This isn’t helpful. What might be?”
I think of something else. I go on with my day.
This could happen multiple times in a day or not for weeks. It depends. I’m not sure on what.
I am sure that it will happen in these days before autumn becomes serious, takes hold, and Halloween bursts in with a chill. The loveliness of fall, it’s beauty and fragrance, its creeping presence then all of a sudden grand entrance, it takes my breath away. The 41st autumn of expectation of a December birth that instead occurred in October. Without a baby.
Sometimes my tears are for all who are gone, driven by longing to see them again. Another time it’s a twinge I feel for one of them and what they have missed. I reset to go forward. This time of year I cry for me. For someone who lost a child and three in a family to suicide, followed by another for whom it might have been different had she not given up.
I’d cry for anyone who knew that much sorrow and I give myself permission to be anyone.
I think that’s just how it goes. Once in a while we acknowledge the scars on our souls.
And I think it’s okay.
One Bite At a Time 