We build sandcastles. They dot the coastlines of our lives. They are founded in our trust and patience, they are adorned with our attention and affection, and they are constructed of our blood, sweat and tears.
To an impartial or inhuman eye they may seem insignificant, even a bit silly. To us they are things of the most glorious beauty. And our delight in their building is the greatest of all things. We are children at the beach; carefree and happy remaking the landscape of our lives.
Every one of these edifices, without exception, is fragile. They are all mortal. And the sea is utterly, implacably ruthless. At its fancy it heeds neither our levees nor our cries.
We rail against it, we do are damnedest to hold it back, and rightfully so. But labor as we might nothing stops the waves from eventually washing out these things we've built. It can be a single crashing rogue, or a violent storm; but most times it is simply the long march of the decades. In the end our toil always goes back to the sea. And we are left confused and empty.
It hurts so bad to lose one that we've loved. It hurts SO bad. In English the feeling is called grief, but what really happens is all but unspeakable. No language really contains it. We are left with a massive hole inside us; one that will heal, with care, but which will never be filled again. For all our accomplishments as a species, for all our pride, we are still brought to our knees when this terrible thing happens to each of us. It never really ends. It can get "easier", but at no point is it ever easy. Our loved one's face is forever gone. They remain in our scrapbooks, in our home movies. In etchings in stone. They remain in a special place buried deep in our neurons. Therein at least, with the half-light of memory, a shadow of our former love is cast.
But a shadow cannot be hugged. And woe are we.
Despite our pain most of us go back to our lives. We go back to our building, back to glory and beauty. We know deep down that our sandcastles are the best things we will ever behold, in fact they are the best things in all of our known universe, and we know that the privelege of being part of them at all is an infinite blessing.
Someday the sea will once again show its power and its cruelty. Though we will continue to fight the longest of battles; terrible loss will once again find us.
Until then, could you hand me a shovel? That levee needs fixing.
crossposted at The Hammershop