And grief washes in and colors everything blue, and you don’t see it coming until it’s already here. There is no warning, just hot salty water on your face. The sobs are deep and even though he wasn’t my dad, he was a little bit.
We have so many layers of person on us. We cry for obvious things, but usually it’s the not so obvious that we need to pay attention to. Like today how I cried when I read this post by Donald Miller. And it’s just a really short post from a few weeks ago about why he’ll be out of the office for a while. But it slayed me. And I don’t even know if that’s a word, but that’s what it did.
It did something else besides reach down deep and shake me up – it reminded me of joy. Joy comes the same way as grief sometimes. She shows up without calling first, but who would mind? She stands there holding her bright pink skirts with two fistfuls of fabric, smile wide across her lovely face. And she looks me in the eye and reminds me of all the gifts, pointing them out one by one. To live fully is to stand in a room with Joy and Grief and hold them each by the hand, giving them freedom to be themselves. Don’t try to boss them. They won’t listen anyway.
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