There’s a patch of old snow in a corner that I should have guessed was blown-away paper the rain had brought to rest. It is speckled with grime as if small print overspread it, the news of a day I’ve forgotten—if I ever read it. — A Patch of Old Snow, Robert Frost
Robert Frost is my most favorite poet. I love how he blends beauty and melancholy together effortlessly. His duality about depression and simple joy ring true to me in this season of my life. At one point, I maintained that it was impossible to experience deep sadness and joy simultaneously. How could it be? I also believed that tragic things happened—and maybe, just maybe—the world froze in suspense, mimicking the torturing pain that trapped me. Wasn’t it caught up in suffering like me? How could the world turn or the sun rise after my best friend’s death? How did creation carry on with such ease when my foster son went home to his mother? Why must dust and clutter collect around my house when I was paralyzed? Everything else ran, skipped, and piled on, while I lay frozen in my bed most days. Why did time fling forward so carelessly? Seasons ebb like the tides coming and going. And yet, for all the speed and all the months and years, suffering clings secretly in the shadows, like the old patch of snow weeks after the last winter storm.
Silent, slicing, slithering, secret and insidious, sickening, screaming, seething, such is a life borne of grief. Life dances on by, children grow and milestones are hit one after another, but my mind is stuck in wondering where all the lost things went. What would have been if they had stayed?
I love my life...my husband, my children, my home, and even my job. But even in the happiest of times, there is a dark grief clinging deep in my soul. It’s a wound, turned into scar upon scar, loss after loss.
It may be a New Year, but time doesn’t erase years of struggle and pain. As much as people closest to me might wish it, I can’t fully move on. Sammy’s bed will always be his, my kids will remember him and cry (on the days when their growing brains bring it to the surface, when they actually understand.) Each holiday and birthday is a reminder of friends and family who are gone...forever frozen as time marches proudly on. Certain smells can take me back to a night when something was stolen from me, though many years have passed. Time is unaware. He doesn’t march forward to hurt me, but he boldly moves with a glib apathy, a slight smile on his face. My darkness, ever clinging.
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