When you lose someone this way the question of Why takes precedence, circling like a voracious vulture. Why did it happen? The How is traceable, but was there overarching meaning to the event... or was it a callous deal of circumstance?
I believe that everything happens for a reason. Whether that reason is cosmic or finite in nature bears less importance than the necessity of looking on a circumstance and learning from it. Time and space assist with this endeavour, but it is never easy to accomplish. While I recognise and acknowledge what happened - even understand the why at a logical level - it is far harder to teach your emotions. To make them understand.
I strove for 'normal' after the deaths in my family. Now that word is shapeless. There is only one day to the next, a pattern of events which translates to most as monotony, yet within it are thousands of unique moments to exist within and forge connection.
Perhaps the most powerful message I've received this past year is that caring for others does not mean continually Giving. When you feel deeply for someone you want to do everything in your power to assist them, but doing so is not always in their best interests or yours. It's one of those things you know on a conscious level, yet having to enforce it... can be enormously painful. In looking for meaning among the pain of living, one can only bring along awareness. Of the larger world, and oneself.
A new chapter of my life is upon me, and within it I hope to build upon my failures and successes alike. Go forward with a clearer vision of who I am, and how I wish to shape my story. The next post will detail a segment of this new narrative; an opportunity that presented itself as I was seeking clarity and that has facilitated a fresh direction for my love of writing.