I am strong and capable and determined. But I’m not those things today, and that is okay. Today I need cared for. I need someone to handle me gently, to gather me up and stand watch over me. I need someone to bring heat to the hole that remains were loss has been. I need someone to fill the gap, not permanently, but temporarily, while the bitter chill of your absence blows in. I need covered in a blanket of warmth and love.
Today I am fragile and vulnerable. I am feeling a bit like a chick fresh from her shell, still sticky and damp. Uncertain about what comes next, not yet ready. I have life, and it is good, but I feel a new uncertainty I’m not yet familiar with and definitely not comfortable with.
I need to cry, and yet I hesitate. Afraid that it might take over the next hour, or the whole day, or maybe a year. Like a dam that has held water back, if it opens, I worry that the people I love and want to serve might drown in my lake, in my ocean of tears.
Or, perhaps it’s the very thing required. Empty myself of the tears inside long enough to create a body of water. A body that might allow us float on a raft to a beautiful location we might not find otherwise? A place of healing where our scars guide us like a map or are like ancient hieroglyphics telling powerful stories of redemption and community and survival. Stories of where others come in to fill gaps with heat and comfort and care?
And this new place, this place we discover, this place that we wouldn’t even know existed if not for tears, it’s here where I learn how to care for the vulnerable and fragile, to stand watch over the newborn chick. This is the place where I convalesce and also where I get trained. Because someday, I will be strong again. I will be shored up and ready to take my turn. But that is not today. And that’s okay.
human interruptions 