This new world

In this new world I walk alone while I walk alongside you.  I speak and you hear me, but you don't understand.  It is a language spoken by those who have traveled to this world where your life is never the same.  Friends  have become strangers, and strangers have become my friends.  In this world you don't tell stories, you have one.  You live your story, and we read the chapters.  Words are not words, they are someone's soul written out loud.  There are too many of us in this world.  I pray you never have to come here.  It is a place where tragedies unfold, where hearts are broken, where hope is fleeting, where faith is fading.   In this world the seasons are long, and full of grief.  There are no patterns to the seasons, they come and go with no warning.   Winter is harsh,  it is the season in which you are numb, unable to move through the thick plows of emotion.  Fall is not beautiful, but painful.  It is the shedding of emotions, leaving you bare, fragile, weakened.  Spring is short but brings with it the birth of new hope, and for some new life.

There are many that have been here for a long time, some that have just arrived, and sadly many more that will be coming.  You never leave this place once you've arrived.  You adapt to it, or so I'm learning.  We are a group that no one wants to join, but once you have,  you can't imagine going on without them.   There is compassion here, an unspoken acceptance.

While you count birthdays, we count anniversaries.  While you are teaching your children all about life, we are teaching ours about death. While you are visiting gardens, we are visiting graves.  Holidays are especially hard here.  There are presents under the tree for yours, and we hang an ornament to remember ours.  You light a candle for each year they've grown, we light a candle every year they have been gone.

This world is not where I wanted to live, but it's where I belong now.  I will grow here, I will learn here, and I will heal here.  In this place my faith can be restored, with hope for a better tomorrow.  In this world I am a mother to an angel.