Grief is both a constant companion and a solemn stranger – a stranger who rolls around on certain dates, ready to suck the air from your gut.

Sorrow knows no boundaries, and there are no easy steps to 100% healing.

After I lost my father as a small child, I threw a penny in the fountain by the carrousel behind the library and wished for a new daddy. In my tiny, un-developed mind, I must have believed that once God answered that prayer, the pain would be behind me and rainbows would be ahead. Little did I know that my grief would grip my hand and walk beside me the rest of my days. It switched to my non-dominate hand after some support, and although it’s wrinkled palm is numb to me many days of the year, there are moments where I react from that dark, black-hole-of-a-place, and there are days where the weight of my loss overwhelms my entirety.

I tell you all this because if your wound is fresh, if the scar is a different shape than mine, if the grief grips not just your non-dominant hand, but also your dominant one and your lungs and your heart: I may have no words, but I do have two ears.

What sorrow is now woven into your DNA?