ON BROKEN HEARTEDNESS

I could not write about heartbreak. So, I left home and traveled wondering:
How do you describe the process that makes emptiness evident? That stretches out our longing over the racks of days and years? That makes our futility and powerlessness undeniable?
How do you write about the hero’s failure and the lover’s loss?
Where do you turn when the wreckage of what you lost is soaking at your feet?
And, who wants to be reminded of these things? The abrasive reality that nothing is permanent and that all of life is a gallant swan dive into the waves of time. And, time holds on to nothing.
So, I needed to lay myself next to something ancient. Something that truly understood. Here by the crumbling ancient rocks, I found what I was looking for. People forgotten, stories untold, seemingly noble wars, justified brutality and these broken fragments standing for what will never be again.
And, finally my tears had a place.
In this wreckage, someone stood here and tried -tried to love more, create something, speak with God, find meaning. And, she did until it was lost in the waves… And, I did until it was lost in the waves… And, we did until it was lost in the waves…
We all know, loss is a part of the cycle of things. Yet we still try to live in the illusion that what we have will last. The glaring truth breaking through our resistance once again, we cry on the shoulder of our grandmother, who knows these losses wear us down like stones, polished until we become soft and distilled to our essence. She is fully aware that the method is often unbearably gritty and painful.
Her heart has been broken so many times that it is big enough to hold our tears. Her yard filled with parts of monuments and abandoned relics because she feels their honesty. There is no judgement when she sees our tears. She understands how much it hurts -each grey hair and aching bone, a page of her story.
And, she knows there are no words to express heartbreak.
That its full comprehension is found in the softness of the touch and a willingness to not look away during the breaking.
She remembers that after the night of despair, when we feel the darkness will not end, there is the ever-subtle break into light and the first sounds of birds that our too-tender heart might not yet have the courage to notice. She knows that if she holds our hand, we might find the strength.
And, so she does.
And we cry as we see the light come over the horizon but this time it hurts a little less. And we again build another nest in our hearts, so that in time we, and its inhabitants, might take another leap of faith.