Beach Glass

The Pacific Ocean. There is no other place quite like it. When I was in treatment, I spent as many days as I could at the coast, absorbing the tangy salt smell, the cries of the gulls, the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore. It filled me with a sense of peaceful energy, enough to give me the strength to return to the city and another brutal round of chemo. My son and I would spend many hours wandering along the edge of the water, heads down, searching. We were on the lookout for little treasures, especially beach glass. I’m not sure why, but Owen gets so excited (me too!) at the sight of a smooth, colorful bit of glass. Edges rounded by years of tumbling in the sand and waves, they are wonderful to touch. And the colors! Green, blue, white, brown,,,did you know red is the rarest? Of every five thousand pieces, only one will be red. The day we found not one, but two, pieces of red glass was such a thrill! But one day, Owen picked up a piece that was still sharp. It poked his finger and he dropped it, with a yelp. He was surprised by this and asked me why the glass had hurt him. I explained to him that it was too new a piece, too fresh…the passage of time hadn’t yet worked its magic, smoothing the edges and making it easier to hold. It occurred to me as I talked with my son that grief is much the same way. In the first weeks, months, perhaps even years, of mourning the loss of someone we love, the grief is very much like that piece of glass that cut my son. Its edges are sharp, it hurts to hold. But as time passes, the contours of our grief begin to change, to be softened and smoothed. It becomes possible to hold our grief close, to handle it and feel its shape, without suffering the sharpness of a cut. Our grief is still there, still very real, but transformed by time into something a iittle softer, more gentle to the touch. It is neither an easy process nor a quick one, but in the end, every jagged shard earns its own rare and special beauty.

Dedicated to all the warriors who battle against this wretched disease, and the people who love them.

Cross-posted from Blog for a Cure...I wrote this after we lost several wonderful people at that site. It reflects my personal experience of mourning the loss of my sister, brother-in-law and dad, all of whom died in a rough stretch seven years ago.