Pools, Lakes and Rivers

In the beginning, my heart was drowning in a deep pool of sadness and grief. There were no steps, no way out other than to hoist my heart up and throw myself onto the side. But I didn’t have the strength for this, so I continued to drown. The constant tears kept the pool filled and depleted me of any energy necessary to escape.

The next shape of my grief was more like a lake, with graduated, sloping exits. Like the pool, the tears kept it filled, but when there were tear-free days, it was easier to muster up a little bit of strength for my heart to climb out from time to time.

The current state of my grief seems to be more river-like. Many small rivers running deeply through my heart, that swell when the tears come quickly, but recede a bit when things feel okay. When there’s a downpour, they rise and crest and flood the rest of my system. There’s a river for thinking what Cayden would be doing if he were home with us right now. There’s a river that’s often overflowing, of Cayden’s last day with us. And many more. They’re not as all consuming, the rivers, as the pool and the lake, and I’m fascinated and surprised by this shift. The idea of rivers seems more manageable to me, I think I’m less likely to drown in rivers that ebb and flow and have branches and rocks and things to grab hold of, than in a deep pool with no easy way out.

As different as they are, these three have something in common, though--the people. The people who threw a buoy, held out a branch, and mostly those who jumped right in to either hold us up when we couldn’t even tread water, those who swam with us. People who didn’t care about getting wet and cold and uncomfortable, and helped us from slipping underwater, from drowning. You are, and continue to be, our lifesavers, in every sense of the word.