It has been awhile since I have visited here.  It has been a busy few weeks of packing and then unpacking.  We are now almost settled into our new home – pictures still need to be hung, walls painted but it smells like us.

More importantly we have fallen into a rhythm that feels more solid, more connected. Simply put – it feels right.  The outside is now no longer a destination but simply a part of our home.  We are dirtier (and wetter) but we are happier.  The girls can be with me while I cook and move around the kitchen but they aren’t in my way.  There is room for all of us and our dreams here.  It is not our final home but it is ours for now.

But it was really hard getting here.  A lot harder that I thought it would be.  Not because I loved where we were leaving – not like our first apartment where we brought Miss Pumpkin home.  Hard –  because I was leaving the last place I will ever live that contains physical memories of my father.  He was only there once, his birthday the day we moved in but I was still able to see him there, to look over and remember him that evening.  Maybe that place was meant to be a brief stop – a place of transition.  Maybe the universe knew that I needed a place where I could begin to work through the deaths and births that have formed the backdrop of my life this past year and a half.  A place that I didn’t love so it was easier to leave.  But it is not like I am leaving the grief behind, it sits with me, hiding just behind my eyes,  in my throat, in my belly and waits.  It is dense but slowly, slowly it  is unfolding, giving me back my space.

I thought it would be easier with time and I suppose mostly it is.  I find it hurts the most when I am having to let go and I am desperately trying to hold on.  Like now.  I need to let go of our old house and my fear that letting go means I will lose those memories.  Instead, I need to trust that by not madly scrambling to hold on I will become aware of dad in new ways.  I need to remember that the tears when they come should not be brushed aside or dismissed but honoured as each drop is in itself a prayer.  A prayer of love.  A prayer of grief.  A prayer of life.

“There is a sacredness in tears.  They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.  They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.” (Washington Irving)