The World Spins Madly On

"I think of your face, wonder where you have gone, and the world spins madly on" ~ The Weepies

The world spins madly on. How we wish we could stop it. In many ways we feel like for us it is stopped. We see transactions occur, people flash by like apparitions. Work, merciless in its dogged pursuit of fallen goals, relentless in its tugging at our shoulder, leads us with chains of iron.

I believe that God granted us a protection in our grief that shields us from returning too soon to the normalcy of life. In fact, I would go further to say that as we walk with the "crook in our lot" we are reminded that what we lived before is not normal, and what we are living now is more normal. I do not want to go back to the man I was before the birth of my son. My son has changed me, or rather, the hand of God through the death of my son has changed me.

But grief is like a chameleon, it changes. It matures. And this is necessary; grief is healthy, but when it leads to depression, the positive aspects are stripped and we are no longer transformed for the better through our grief. I have felt a tearing as of late. A desperation to run as fast as I can to the physical location where the memories of my son are is tempered by a peaceful beckoning that calls me to venture beyond his leaving. I know that his leaving led to his life, in a small temporal way my leaving will also contribute to my life.

Like a crippled man taking small steps, I tasted the breath of new life lived through friendship this past weekend. It was sweet and it was real. Electra and I, like two Canadian trappers stepping out of their cabin during the first semi-mild day of Spring, stuck our heads out into the life of our local community. The breath was sweet, and for a moment the world stopped spinning madly on.