The Bones of Our Friends.

 

The glue bends and breaks; it’s inevitable. Nothing holds forever, but maybe that’s the point.

We can’t be numb and effective.

It’s either the undoing and hoping for the best, or complacency. I choose the undoing with ever fiber of my being. I am not here to keep my head in the sand and shy away from the hardest moments life inevitably provides. I am here to hold onto the anchor in the storm and reach my arm out, holding on to those who pass by.

There is nothing normal about making funeral arrangements 15 times, and for him, 18.

Every goodbye was so much more. The last hug, watching him walk away, was when my heart would shatter. I fell apart, but not for long. If you’re going to implode, the pieces must be picked up quickly (after one good cry that reaches the depths of your bones). Once the pieces are gathered, you glue them back together and put your heart back in a vault it knows all too well.

The vault is not always full of light and hope. Often, it is dark, an indescribable place that has lost all life and all feeling. The vault is excruciating but necessary.

It is in the undoing that the inescapable callouses grow.

When you no longer have to keep your heart in survival mode, you let it out so it can soak up the warmth of the sun and the joy in all of the smallest moments. It’s not until you live like this that you see how very small places can be where joy can be found.

Watching your husband, your nation’s hero, hold your two-month-old baby in his arms, saying goodbye quietly and in private, nothing prepares you for that. How can you move on in normalcy. I’m not asking because you don’t; you can’t.

There is a cost to everything that matters.

At the end, which never ends, you stand in the ashes of all that was and all who were lost. The calls never end of losing another to the all-consuming darkness that surrounds some after years of combat. The end is nonexistent.

When you look into the eyes of those you love most and recognize the pain that will never dissipate, it is a constant reminder of all that was lost, all who were lost. The pain will never leave; its effects will forever be etched in every fiber of your being.

The cost of war is gruesome. The cost of navigating post-war is its equal match.

 
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When You Don’t Know What to Pursue.

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Summer Smoke