This excellent essay has been making the rounds. It is well written and anyone who is grieving knows it is true. To imply that there is some higher reason for our tragedies does not lessen our pain or make it any more intelligible, and it is nonsense. During those first horrible months after Jake’s death, I groped for any reason that would explain why he had to go. I read somewhere that even if there was a reason, there is no reason good enough for this to have happened. There is no understanding, there is no acceptance, there is only acknowledgement. Yes, this happened, and now my job is to keep on as best I can. It is something I will never get over.
“Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried. ”
I will carry the grief and loneliness Jake’s departure wrought for as long as I live. It isn’t that the burden has lessened, I have become more inured to its crushing weight, have adjusted my pace to keep from collapsing. So I plod along, one step at a time, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. And that’s just the way it is. There is no “getting over it”, no “moving on”, it doesn’t “get better”, it just is.
