In the city today for counseling. I'm one of "those" sitting at Starbucks with my laptop.
Grieving, I'm thinking, is a lot like art. Like my previous post on finding the notes or discovering the art- versus actual creation...the grief journey feels already mapped out- I just follow the trail of crumbs...as I write, I try to make those invisible crumbs visible.
So I've had some kind of allergic reaction- I think to the antibiotics I was taking for the sinus infection. I've been covered in pretty brutal hives the past three days- finally some physical sign of inner turmoil- even if it wasn't brought on by something psychosomatic. Job too was covered in itchy sores after he lost his wealth and family...
I was thinking on the bus ride here...about why we try to make sense of this. My grief email of the day was talking about how I have to stop trying to find answers and make sense of it and just look at God. It said not ask whether or not God is, but WHO he is. I felt irritated by that. I worry that if I just go on faith believing, of course I'll end up thinking it's true. But couldn't that be like a placebo affect...you think you're taking a healing pill, so you feel better? I'd prefer to know it's real before I start to fall for that. Pride I guess.
But why do we even try to make sense of it, I ask myself? It clearly isn't something to be made sense of. He tragically drowned and no one really knows why or how. I will never know in this lifetime. What is there to make sense of? What is it in us that hungers for that?
And how foolish I realize lately to believe my own intellect or even that of those much smarter than me that I read in books- could truly make a case for anything here. Is my intellect higher than my physicality? If my body is clearly subject to infirmity and decay, isn't my brain and mind just as fallible? Of course it is...
And then one last thought before getting off the bus and coming here...just like I've written in the past that I can't ask about the tragedies without thinking about all of the mercies- how many other times we were spared...in a similar way- instead of just puzzling over the death...and the mystery that it is...I must first puzzle over the life...that he, I, and you are even here...why?
If I want to puzzle over the death, I must be fair and first,
marvel
at
the
life.