9/11

I'm thinking about grief today, about what it would be like to lose a sonmotherfrienddaughterco-workerfathergrandparentlovedone. About how words would be insufficient and almost insulting to my emotions. About how the loss would crush any other priority, about how I would have to go on with life--eating meals, taking showers, going to church, meeting friends for coffee--and it would all somehow feel like a betrayal to the one lost, like I don't care enough to halt my life too. About grief and anger and questioning and heaviness and tiny, tiny specks of hope that I can barely see. Are they really there? I'm thinking of eight years ago when hundreds of healthy heartbeats stopped their rhythm and I'm thinking of my mother-in-law who lost a child to SIDS over 30 years ago and I'm thinking of Sharon Solwitz, a writer who lost one of her teenage twin boys to cancer and I'm thinking of my 20-something friend Emily who lost her husband of 15 months in the line of duty in Iraq and I'm thinking of mamas around the world who have had to watch their children fade and I'm thinking of my grandmother who longs to see her beloved again on the other side. I'm thinking about how we grieve loss and how strange it is that that kind of emptiness can weigh so much. And I'm thinking about how everyone wants to make you feel better and tell you that it will be alright, but the truth is that, on this side, it will never seem right again. And that's okay.