Yesterday marked the 10-year anniversary of my grandfather's death, and the day was full of sweet memories instead of overwhelming sadness. The cliche that time is a great healer can seem trite at times, but there is great truth to it; passage of time is medicinal when grieving a loss of any kind.
It's like letting go of a helium balloon: the actual letting go is the most difficult part, but with each passing moment, you relinquish it a bit more. As the balloon shrinks, so does your need for it. While your heart is still filled with longing, it's also filled with hope: how far will it go? Who will find it? That tiny speck of oval rubber in the sky is destined for greatness! To borrow from Sandra Cisneros in her short story, "Eleven," the "runaway balloon [is] like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny that you have to close your eyes to see it." Grieving the death of a loved one is like that.
The actual moment of letting go is the hardest. Over time, we slowly relinquish them and, though our hearts are full of longing and loneliness, they are also full of hope, knowing that God has found them! Eventually, our lives adapt so much that we don't see the one we lost every time we look around, and when we do see them, they are smaller and nostalgically sweet. Like the runaway balloon, they never disappear; they just go home, and we must close our eyes to see them in our memories and in our dreams.
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