It's So Hard, To Say Good-Bye.....

I'm pretty used to people coming and going in my life.

 The product of a "broken" family ...

(Seriously, broken? Who came up with that term? As if you are forever some sort of thing that needs repair. Aye.) 

... from second grade on, I grew accustomed to always missing at least one of my parents, and later my brothers, too. It has been more the norm in my life than the exception.

And yet, it always catches me off guard.

The having to say good-bye.

Or, the changing of circumstances that alters the fabric of a friendship, even if the friend is still there.

Nothing is permanent.

All these earthly things are ethereal ... here one minute and gone the next.

But none of that changes the sadness that bears down on my chest tonight.

None of that fills the empty space in my gut that grows larger with each passing minute.

It's hard to wrap my earth-bound conscious around the fact that many of the most impactful people in my life I only knew for a short time.

Some people enter our lives to show us a path, teach us a lesson, reveal things we don't see in ourselves. And once we receive that message, God moves us on.

And yet, in the midst of all this higher order ... our earth-bound psyches get attached to people.In our desire to create order out of chaos, we anchor to close friends to steady us in the darkness of the rocking sea.

And when we see them floating away, caught by an undeniable wave,

We must let go.

Or we risk being pulled into the depths, away from the path.

The Truth.

The Light.

That beckons us forward.

Even in our grief.