Being Human

The space between joy and grief is an indistinguishable one. They are one in the same, woven to one another tightly forming an infinitely strong rope. Never to be separated, no matter how hard we try.

The tension created from each end of this rope holds us upright, from one end to the other, a constant pulling between two spaces of a woven spectrum.

The heavy strand of grief weaves through our DNA, attempting to sink us, reminding us over and over of our humanness even when we want to forget it. It pulls heavy and strong, running its thread around tight. It is ever present, even in the light of day. It suffocates sometimes. It rubs my skin and my soul raw. It hurts. It reminds me this place is not the place my spirit is truly at home. I hate it sometimes, this strand of grief. This place of overwhelming heavy.

The strand runs through me and begins to feel too painful, too much, but somehow, some way, the strand doesn’t stop even when I beg for it to. It keeps running its track through my very being. As it does, even against my will, it softly weaves itself right into the contrasting strand that is threaded into my DNA right alongside the grief. The strong strand of life, the one that reminds me of the joy of morning and the breath in my children’s lungs and the blessing of sunrise.

Often, the shift in the weaver’s lines is not easily perceived, but slowly in the silence I begin to sense the interlocking of strands deep within my soul. There without question. The laces of life and death interwoven together so strong there can never be a separation of the two. So vastly different, yet so connected at their core. Never one without the other. Never day without night. Never night without day.

And my heart. She hums to them both.

Dark and light.

Full and empty.

Open and closed.

Grief and joy.

Life. Death.

Burial. Resurrection.

They are so tightly bound.

What is life without both?

~Kalan