grief is loyal

Read this today and it meant something to me.  It is written by Monique Minahan

Grief is loyal.

Grief is so moved when someone dares approach it, speak to it, say its name out loud to its face, without shame, with compassion, that it never forgets.

It is so used to being covered, hidden, shushed, and relegated to closed doors and bathroom floors that when it is invited out into public without a mask it feels a deep wave of gratitude that washes over the heart crevices emptied by death.

They are still empty, but they are touched. They are seen. They are acknowledged. Sometimes for the first time in years.

This is how grief and gratitude meet in the cold, shadowed, uneasy and painful corners of our hearts. Quietly, without much fanfare and even less expectation they lean into each other and breathe.

spring hike by this pretty stream in Santa Barbara