Moment of Peace

Grief seems to span all of the emotions, more than I realized. I have laughed so hard. Found myself crying before my brain can even process the moment. When I talk about that moment she left, I can't describe the physiological emotion I feel inside me. It's like explaining the moment as if my psyche is leaving me. It's the most raw, vulnerable human experience I've ever been a part of having. I will never forget that sensation and feeling. I am changed forever.

I feared it would feel like an ugliness, a sadness that rotted who I was and how I saw the world. And perhaps there might be moments like that popping up along the way. But what I felt most strongly, most irrevocably, is that I need to send myself out into the world to pass on the goodness. That who the girl was, and how much she gave to other people, somehow absorbed into me. That I've seen where we're heading. That finality of the last breath, I felt. I will never be the same.

We were at the store after a few days and I saw two pictures that came in a pair. One said, "Live Every Moment." The other said, "Love Without Words." They were the thesis statements for what I felt, so I bought them even though I don't know where I'll put them. The only words I could say were... Just crying and crying. How intensely I needed to cry, not from fear or sadness, even...but this incredible sense of the power of the moment.

I walked out of the store, with this bewilderment that there were people just standing around talking. Like it was any old moment! Like it was any old day. Couldn't they know about somebody's feelings? That this was perhaps the most significant moment ever? I came home and curled up in the shower, Sanjeet sitting next to me as I talked and cried. I told him I wanted to walk up to people in the supermarket, the playground and say: I wanna shout loudly? When you've seen the most pure side of humanity, death or birth, it simplifies things. All that matters is those persons you love. The persons you'd want in your first or last moments of life. What happens in between is just about making sure that moment is a positive one. That it can be a moment of peace.