“Nobody said it was easy.”

It’s not easy, and I know it. I don’t mind it. I welcome it. A challenge, yes. But not this. This isn’t a hurdle you can jump over, not when it wraps around your heart. You wear it like a necktie, the fashionable noose of a unspoken trend. No one asks where you got it; they’re too preoccupied wondering about theirs.

No, this isn’t a challenge. It’s a curse. Questions on questions.

Why didn’t you run?
Why didn’t you stop her?
Why didn’t you care?

“No one said it was easy…

But no one said it would be this hard.”

At first, it doesn’t make sense. That should have been in your hand. For a few seconds you stare in dumbfounded perplexity at an apparent inconsistency of the normal string of events. What should have been an easily executed plan has suddenly ended in a crash without any explanation. And in that realization, the machine grinds to a halt; your world stops.

A heart beat.

Then your faithful mind’s reasoning kicks in and draws a clear and solid line from the moment of release to the point of impact. It uses words like “trajectory” and “acceleration by gravity” that immediately send ripples of comforting closure to a disappointing separation.

There’s a reassuring ding as the system confirms a completed report and the bits of glass are thrown away – along with a pickle that, after all, you didn’t really want – and the incident is filed under ”accidents” and quickly forgotten.

The next moments comes, and the machine falls into its familiar and comfortable hum.

—

I wish you could see me now.

I wish I could show you how I’m not who I was.

I used to be mad at you, and, to be honest, a little on the hurt side too.

But now, I’m not who I was.

I found my way around to forgiving you some time ago, but I never got to tell you so.

You see, I found us in a photograph. I saw me, and I had to laugh.

You know, I’m not who I was.

You were there, right above me. I wonder if you ever loved me just for who I was. When the pain came back again, like a bitter friend, it was all that I could do to keep myself from blaming you.

But you know it’s a funny thing: I figured out I can sing.

Now I’m not who I was.

I write about love and such, maybe because I want it so much.

I guess I’m not who I was.

And I was thinking maybe I should let you know, that I am not the same…

That I never did forget your name…

You know, the thing I find most amazing in Amazing Grace is a chance to give it out. Maybe that’s what love is all about…

I wish you could see me now. I wish I could show you how

I’m not who I was.

Funny how it is that on the greatest night of your life, the night when the greatest step is made, suddenly everything looks different. The bitter-sweet memories flood back, the old moments are relived. What once was life is no more, and perspective crystallizes with mocking clarity. Suddenly, that room full of people lacks one face, and no amount of smiles could replace the one that’s missing.

The auditorium was almost full, but the seat that mattered was empty.

—

“”It’s so much easier to see the world in black and white. But grey…”

Pause.

“I don’t know what to do with grey.”

~Garrus

I have met people, friends and strangers alike, who view the world in black and white.

“I see the facts,” they say. ”And there either is or is not.” Pragmatism, we call it. Simple, solid, certain practicality.

I suppose I can say that there is black and white in this world, that there is right and there is wrong. And I can accept, in fact, stand upon the fact that these cannot mix, that one is independent of the other. But that there are only these two, that everything we see is a two-bit rendering of cosmic and moral opposites in constant class with each other…

I am not black and white. If anything, I am as black as can be, all the way to my soul. You will not find one part of me that is not based on a problem deep down. Call it the sinful state, call it being human. The human condition, we call it. Confusing, contradicting, uncertain humanity.

If God had wanted us to see in black and white, He would have limited our eyes to such, and let us be. But He didn’t. Instead, I see color, I see shades, I see mixes, complements, contradictions, all existing in the same moment. And they all come together to paint this beautiful picture that we call life.

The lines of love mingle with strokes of pain. A spatter of happiness mingles with drops of sorrow. The heart is outlined in these things, but left empty inside.

No, if life were black and white, I would not have said the words I said that day. If love were black and white, we wouldn’t be where we are right now: together, apart, confused, uncertain.

If I were black and white, it would be simple to decide if I was worth it.

If it were all just black and white, I could handle life just fine.

But grey…

“I don’t know what to do with grey.”

—

I walked into the grocery store not particularly interested in buying groceries. I wasn’t hungry. The pain of losing my husband of 37 years was still too raw. And this grocery store held so many sweet memories.
Rudy often came with me and almost every time he’d pretend to go off and look for something special. I knew what he was up to. I’d always spot him walking down the aisle with the three yellow roses in his hands.
Rudy knew I loved yellow roses.
With a heart filled with grief, I only wanted to buy my few items and leave, but even grocery shopping was different since Rudy had passed on.
Shopping for one took time, a little more thought than it had for two. Standing by the meat, I searched for the perfect small steak and remembered how Rudy had loved his steak.
Suddenly a woman came beside me. She was blond, slim and lovely in a soft green suit. I watched as she picked up a large pack of T-bones, dropped them in her basket, hesitated, and then put them back. She turned to go and once again reached for the pack of steaks. She saw me watching her and she smiled. “My husband loves T-bones, but honestly, at these prices, I don’t know.”
I swallowed the emotion down my throat and met her pale blue eyes. “My husband passed away eight days ago,” I told her. Glancing at the package in her hands, I fought to control the tremble in my voice. “Buy him the steaks. And cherish every moment you have together.”
She shook her head and I saw the emotion in her eyes as she placed the package in her basket and wheeled away. I turned and pushed my cart across the length of the store to the dairy products. There I stood, trying to decide which size milk I should buy. A quart, I finally decided and moved on to the ice cream section near the front of the store.
If nothing else, I could always fix myself an ice cream cone. I placed the ice cream in my cart and looked down the aisle toward the front. I saw first the green suit, then recognized the pretty lady coming towards me.
In her arms she carried a package. On her face was the brightest smile I had ever seen. I would swear a soft halo encircled her blond hair as she kept walking toward me, her eyes holding mine. As she came closer, I saw what she held and tears began misting in my yes.
“These are for you,” she said and placed three beautiful long stemmed yellow roses in my arms. “When you go through the line, they will know these are paid for.”
She leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on my cheek, then smiled again. I wanted to tell her what she’d done, what the roses meant, but still unable to speak, I watched as she walked away as tears clouded my vision.
I looked down at the beautiful roses nestled in the green tissue wrapping and found it almost unreal. How did she know?
Suddenly the answer seemed so clear. I wasn’t alone. “Oh, Lord, Thou hasn’t forgotten me,” I whispered, with tears in my eyes.
Everyday be thankful for what you have and who you are.
Author Unknown

Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis

A comic befitting a blog.

Shame I don’t remember.
I’m ashamed I can’t remember.
If that was heaven, and you’re my Eve,
Why did we leave?

Shake my head and try to find some common ground.
Trying to say, say your name, but I can’t make a sound.
Was I right? But how were you wrong?
Did I apologize, and why’d I wait so long?

Sorry, I don’t remember.
I’m so proud, I won’t remember.
If that was heaven, and you were the key
Why did I leave?

Roll back over to get away from the light
Just close my eyes, close them as if the dark makes two wrongs right.
If this is my hell, and this is the deed,
Why won’t I leave?

Shame I don’t remember.
God, why can’t I remember?
Why didn’t I remember?
Remember.
Remember.
There was heaven, there was the key.
Why did I leave?

He had left long ago, left her here. But his words remained. His words rang in her ears, echoes of words that built on themselves and drowned out the words that she remembered.

“He said he loved me before,” she though. “He said he cared. He meant those words, he had to have.”

But these words he had left with her, these words couldn’t have come from Love. Love doesn’t carry a knife.

“From a wounded heart, perhaps? I am wounded, I have said words that could hurt,” she thought.

But we are all wounded, and yet there is still love.

“But he was hurt, I could see it in his eyes-”

We all hurt, and yet there is still love.

“But… H-He said…”

Words.

Words spoken from love.

Words spoken from pain.

They are all just words.

—

The hedgehog’s wounds are always fresh in the morning when he awakes, the cost of a little extra warmth, a little extra comfort. But any show of affection costs him. A hug, a kiss, or just the nearness of another brings him pain. Old wounds run anew, old hurts well up again. He never imagined his heart would weigh this much, he never imagined he would ask himself if it was worth it. Those old songs of never trusting again, the poems of never going back, just letting it all go, they were just words. Words spoken from a heart hurt by love.

But they were just words.

The hedgehog gets up and gingerly licks his wounds. He counts them, old scars, new scars. But as he counts them, he’s not troubled by the numbers he himself bears. There are names to each of them, events, faces, words, like labels under picture frames or tags on murder weapons.

No, what clouds his mind and grips his heart is the number he has left on others.

—

The girl got up from the puddle, choking back a tear that shook her frame as it crossed the dessert of her cheek to her chin. The words still ring in her ears, but the face is cloudy. The name doesn’t quite match the phrase.

There was a pair of lips that said “I love you.” They belonged to a boy without a face and name. No, he had a name. She just didn’t know it yet.

But the lips that muttered that other phrase, the phrase that had laid her low, cut her deep, driven her away, those lips… were the same?

The same heart? The same tongue? The same pain from the same love?

“But Love doesn’t carry knives, Love doesn’t destroy. Love is patient. Love is kind.”

Love is hard.

“Is it so hard?” She sobbed.

“Is that Love?”

—

The hedgehog limps along. Occasionally he stops and looks back over his shoulder. Somewhere back there are others hurting like him, and others hurting because of him.

As he licks his wounds again that night, he thinks, “If only I could tend to theirs, if only I could help them heal.” But his tongue is a quill to any wound but his own, and it only heals with more punctures and stabs.

“Am I doomed to be alone then?” he wonders. “Are we all destined to trade pain for warmth, pain for kindness?”

“Is that Love?”

—

The young girl heard love and pain, but saw that they came from the same heart.

The hedgehog felt his own wounds, but saw those carried by others; he found them to be a cruel currency.

“Is that Love?” they asked.

—

Love and pain are not strangers. One is the thing we wish for, and the other is the price we pay.

“And so I write at the conclusion:
Love isn’t made.
Love doesn’t sell or trade.
But we buy and sell our love away.”

John Foreman

A beautiful animation and song. An ending that is as paradoxical and confusing as love itself, to put it poetically. The force that brings us together also leads us apart.

—

Woke up and wished that I was dead.
With an aching in my head,
I lay motionless in bed.
I thought of you and where you’d gone
and let the world spin madly on.

Everything that I said I’d do,
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you…
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn.
And the world spins madly on.

I let the day go by.
I always say goodbye.
I watch the stars from my window sill.
The whole world is moving and I’m standing still.

Woke up and wished that I was dead.
With an aching in my head,
I lay motionless in bed.
The night is here and the day is gone,
And the world spins madly on.

I thought of you and where you’d gone,
And the world spins madly on.