For Those Who Survive

For those that survive, the darkness has yet to pass.

The darkness, that great black curtain that falls any time we lose someone we love, is a living thing that morphs and evolves day by day as you remember things once forgotten and regret things never done or said. The darkness that haunts us for the rest of our lives just as the absence of our loved one does.

But there is light.

As dark as things may get we can never, ever forget that every darkness is born of the absence of light, and that every light yet lives in the darkness, just unseen.

There is always light.

In every fond memory, in every soft word, in every photo, and every time we think of someone we lost there is a light waiting to be born. And sometimes that is the worst of it, that there is so much love in us at times that knowing that a person we loved is gone makes it hurt all the more. But there is light. Whenever you love someone it doesn’t go away, it never goes away, it just changes, it evolves, it grows as we grow and never has to disappear. Memories and love are never enough, never, never enough to make up for the loss of someone but life too evolves. Life too changes. And it is change that makes this world worth exploring.

We are neither promised nor guaranteed that we will meet people who touch our lives in lasting ways and it is only by the act of magic and miracles that we do meet those people. Take a moment, one moment, and think on all the loves of your life, all the friends, all the family, all the amazing people you have met so far on this journey and who have touched your life and changed who you are. It’s breathtaking. It’s overwhelming. It’s light.

Loss is always sad, it is sad because suddenly we are without this light we had known for so long, but just because that light is dimmed it does not mean it is gone, it means it has changed. It is only gone if we let that light extinguish, and that happens if we cling too long to the dark. We all need to mourn, we need to hurt, but in the end we also need to heal or we lose why it was we were hurting in the first place.

And here’s the rub – I can give you a million flowery words but it won’t take your loss away. The horrible thing in life is that we are born to lose the things we love, but lose them though we may, we lose them only in a physical sense. The feelings we have, the moments we share are gone only when we let them leave us and even then they remain. We affect people in so many ways that we cannot guess, and are affedted in the same ways. We will never know how deeply the people around us have changed us and will never see how many fingerprints are on our hearts but you can never remove those fingerprints, even if we want them gone. At your saddest, at your darkest, take solace in knowing that you changed the people you loved and you too were changed by them. Even if you can never see it, it is there, like breath…like faith…like magic.

So this is for those that survive and are left behind. A love song and a reminder at once. We are only in the dark as long as we choose to remain there, but in the end – is the dark where the person you have lost would want you? Is that your tribute? Don’t they deserve more?

So mourn. So cry. So hurt.

But heal.

But remember.

But live.

Because living is the true sign that we have not forgotten the ones we love, and the true sign that the light lives on. And for you I light a candle, in honor of all of those you have lost, so you may find your way back home.