He had a heart weighted with memories of a love he once loved.
She had a heart torn by unmet expectations.
They had done life together, but now no longer know one another.
Time distanced them by years, even though they live in the same town.
She shops at a different grocery store, yet he still crosses her mind when she passes his favorite brand of cereal.
He crosses the street to walk to the park where they once walked together. He walks their dog… his, now.
They each moved on, but as it is with love and loss, remnants of life and living are hard to let go of.
Some memories remain with or without our permission, pricking us like splinters or caressing us like kisses.
Some songs will always make our hearts drop or dance… sometimes at the same time.
Some scents will stop us in our tracks, make us turn, despite knowing we will not see the face embedded in our minds.
Not all loss comes with the finality of physical death, just as not every physical death equates to a finality of loss.
As relational beings, we are born with a need for one another. I suspect this need doesn’t perish in the death of doing life with another nor in the cessation of life itself.
In fact, as much as we are relational, we are adaptable.
We can live on earth while loving someone in Heaven.
We can pray to God in Heaven while experiencing His love on earth.
We can be badly bruised by life, even broken in seasons, and still carry hope like a lantern through dark days.
Eventually, we carry on, with our scars and stories, perhaps a little wiser, thanking God that some seasons are behind us and others are still before us.
Life is moving, yet all our experiences come with us — we are both living and dying at the same time — moving from one thought to the next.
And still, some days feel like all is at a standstill.
In these moments, we may question the purpose of it all and our peace.
We may find comfort in the pillow on the couch or the book on the nightstand.
We might curl our hands around a hot mug of tea or listen to music that allows our muscles and mind to relax.
And as time moves on beyond us, it is also moving within us as we travel backwards and forward, revisiting and reimagining what was and what will be.
Soon enough, the space between thought and action collides, and we once again rise and do life, knowing that both living and loving come with the cost of loss.
And yet, we keep going. Why? Because Love Himself demonstrated on the cross that neither life nor death can separate us from our need for love, peace, and purpose. And in Christ, we have all these and more.
In this, we keep going, even if life looks different after a loss. We keep shopping, walking the dog, listening to music, and making memories, even if we do it, at times, with a pang in our chest.
Eventually, we learn to dance and laugh again, knowing we are all of what we have been, are, and hope to be.
We are, in essence, travelers being healed by Christ’s grace and love, helping to walk one another home.
This column was initially published by CherryRoad Media. For more inspirational articles, follow ©Tiffany Kaye Chartier.