Will Wields All

They say grief changes somebody.

Inevitably, with outcomes that surpass anybody’s expectations.

You think you’ll come out of the woods with a few scratches, but you’re missing parts of yourself instead.

The days have become bearable at best, and your new standard. There is not one time grief doesn’t greet you, but as a new adult on the block, everything must be fine.

Or does it have to always be fine?

Life at normal capacity preserves the universal law of balance between happiness and suffering. Some, too focused on finding one than accepting the other.

This is an unwritten law. What is written, however, is death.

And what is yet to be written is the will to accept that the scale of our persevering love for the one who has left us is bigger than we thought it was.

But where would you dispose all of that love?

Grief works in a funny way; you are full of love you didn’t know existed in you, and at the same time you are a barren husk dried out of mercy from yourself. However, the cells in your body are fighting for you, keeping you alive. You are alive, able to look at the past, or to look forward to the future. The present day will always ask you,

Which one will you do today?

A single, even momentary, decision can change the trajectory of all. The present day will ask you if you will just get up. The present also allows the option for you to overthink yourself to oblivion. The present day is powerless, but rather, the will fuels it. Even if your soul hasn’t caught fire, the earth grounds and reminds you where your feet can go.

Because suffering is inevitable, but the means of your suffering is a choice.

One has the choice to become a husk or a vessel.

Grief strips us bare, peeling away old identities, revealing the beginnings of someone new.

Grief breathes life into rebirth.

To my aunt, T

To my partner, R

Thank you for willing to row against the sea storms with me.