The Ink of Grief

I love working with fountain pens. I've loved ink since I was in high school. What happens with pen and ink results from the alchemy of the type of pen, a particular ink and the paper being used. Depending on the ink and the paper, the ink can bleed out into the paper around the mark you've made.

Loss with grief is sort of like that. It can bleed out into every area of your life. When loss gets a strangle hold on you for a time, there isn't even enough air in the room for your malfunctioning lungs to take in. It seeps away from the original place of seismic trauma into the atmosphere of the day. It trickles away from a thought and is drawn as if by a magnet to other spaces in your life. It transforms you into a stage actor when you're interacting with other people.

Or loss with grief is like a coursing river which is fed by a dozen tributaries, all the smaller losses intertwining with the deep waters that carry you onward.

You can alter the bleeding ink situation by changing the paper or even the ink. The river may cut in a new direction and tributaries dry up. But change to the terrain of a human heart moves at its own pace - a story spoken one word at a time.