Love Sorrow

We're all familiar with loss. The wrenching hurt of shattered conceptions. The collapse of certain fidelity. The evaporation of love. The disappearance of a petty childhood toy. A loving friend reminded me, in my absence of mind, of Ecclesiastes 3.

There is a time for everything, &
a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born & a time to die...a time to weep
& a time to laugh...a time to mourn & a time to dance...

How precious is the permission to be full of sorrow! The license to be soulfully aching! I want to scream to the world that I am going to miss the friendship & companionship of my precious puppy. Yes, this is all about a dog. Fifteen years, Trigger has been a girl's best friend. Fifteen years, he has annoyed me to no end. For fifteen years, he has been the epitome of joy.

And cue tears.

Love sorrow. She is yours now & you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing the street. For, think,

what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so

utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment

by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,

as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes, she looks about her;
she begins to grow.

--Love Sorrow from "Red Bird" by Mary Oliver

(P.C.: Google Images)

And so I will run with my sorrow for a time. I will embrace her. I will acknowledge that this is her time, & I will walk hand in hand with her in the full security that God is the strength of my heart & my portion forever.