Come

People have apologized to me lately. Not because they have done anything wrong, but because when I

sincerely ask how they are, tears often come. As they begin to describe their own sadness, difficulty, or

loss, they quickly catch themselves. “I mean it is nothing compared to what you have suffered…”. They

apologize as if my grief outweighs their own. Somehow more worthy of notice.

Perhaps it is true, in a universal measure, what I carry is heavier. It is certainly the heaviest thing I have

ever carried, to be sure. But this experience of grief does not belong to a singular subset. Who is to say

the crucible you are living through today is not more deserving of recognition than mine? 

Grief belongs to everyone. 

Because this human experience is filled with loss, and every loss, is a loss. 

But sometimes we pretend it’s not true, don’t we? Surely what I am experiencing is not grief, we say. We

call it by other names sometimes - stress, relentless worry, fear, sleeplessness, overwhelm. But I think it’s

grief. 

Maybe we just aren’t familiar with her silhouette.

She can be soft, but insistent, causing you to not recognize your own mind or actions. She can be heavy

and dulling, urging you to get lost in blankets and oblivion. She can make your heart pound, your hands

shake, cause you to cut those around you down with a word, your tongue a weapon. She can be gentle,

as she wrings out your sorrow in relieving tears. 

And why? The earth. The oceans. Our homeland. The dreams we carried for our children. Our bodies.

The suffering of our brothers and sisters. Injustice. Death. War. Destruction. Corruption. Futility. An ocean

of sorrow borne from life in a broken world. 

Our soft, pierced hearts are meant to feel something of this pain. If we do not, we have missed the point

of this world. We must let it pass through us and change us, so we can see more and love even more.

But we were never meant to do it alone.

So, where are our comforting fires? The embracing arms of the knowing elders who look upon us with

compassion and who know that the world still holds together even after the foundations seem to have

cracked? Where are our villages, and those who take in our fields and mend us when we cannot? 

Where we are no burden, but a part of a body, treated gingerly and with delicate care until restored to

whole. Where do we go to make our anguish public, recognized, validated, acknowledged, and carried

until we are strong enough to carry it again? This world sometimes feels as though it offers no

rest. And maybe we wonder, am I worthy of receiving it?

You. Are.

And I have come to see

we are the fires. 

We are the elders and the village,

and we are strong. 

So I will carry you, 

and you will carry me, 

and together we will mend what we can 

so we can carry on, 

together.