What You Learn From Loss

You learn from loss to hold on since letting go is always present. You learn to savor, to squeeze every moment, until the joy drips on your face like rain. You learn to send flowers, bouquets of love, to send that card, to show up for that lunch date. You know to tell people what they mean to you and why, this tiny moment being all you know for sure. You learn to value presence and the grace of living life full awake. You learn that you are small and life is a vapor fleeting fast so you work to slow down its rapid, racing pace. You abandon fear, no time for the wretched thief who would keep you worried, anxious, hurried and mangled with despair. You memorize freckles and take photos with your heart and you cherish before it's gone. You drive long hours for band concerts and track meets, to hold new born babies and to make snow flake angels with helping little hands. You make your grandfathers Christmas candy and build ritual out of rubble, you sew memory with every heartbeat. You weep and you mourn, you curse and you laugh, you live your life true and full and  wide. You pray and you dance and you come to know grief as a grace that delivers to you love en masses and you have but this one life to take it all in.

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