It's how the light gets in

Many times life brings us to places where our resolve,  vulnerability and abilities are put to the forefront.  I know that vulnerability is rare because the world is teaching everyone to be strong,  keep our heads up and to always have it together most of the time. 

But I  have also seen the consequences of refusing to embrace vulnerability...a hardened heart, a numbness  that becomes familiar to us in many ways.  I know so because I have been there. 

He was tall, everyone said,  we should meet each other long before they could find out that we did meet before they could put us together.  I loved him enough to go out with him and a long the way...came the realization that he was emotionally unavailable... scarred and scared to be in a relationship. It felt like an excuse until I  found out his story.

He had been fooled not once but twice,  a lady held a baby in her womb that wasn't his but made him take care of it until on the delivery bed,  when he met face to face with the real father of the Child,  he thought he sired... As he told the story,  I lived his pain.  And here we were...in love yet one of us couldn't give the best of his life because somewhat, the hurt still lingered. 

And I bade him goodbye eventually and for the very first time... I felt my heart break. 

And as sure as broken hearts heals,  so do we find love again.  I did grow out if the ache,  I lived numb but alive.  I survived most times and in moments I never thought of, Love found me. 

He was (for lack of a better word)  Out of his league, me his friend of many years,  not looking to date... Him most probably looking for a fling to wade through.  And there he was playing with the fire that I am. We eventually found middle ground,  I loved him if I am to speak for myself and for the most part of it I think I was guilty of the adagae that he would loves the most hurts the most.  And in all the love that he gave me... I gave double. 

I have been accused of loving too much,  but my argument is love is a mastery of everything that you are and if you cannot give your all,  how then do you hope to make love abide in you? 

He was so much my soul mate because he mirrored the flaws and dynamites that made me me.  In him,  I saw my very self  and I found pieces of me that where hidden. 

He taught me to love myself and to find beauty in my chaos.  He spoke to me in the highest accord of intellect... Awoke my brain to discourse unimaginable and then one day he was gone...

I waited for him to be back,  I yearned to bask in the familiarity of his arms but there was only an ache at the other end.

I feared for my heart again,  I stayed awake many nights praying for this heart not to break. 

I prayed not to break apart and on one lone night after many nights of dreading,  I resolved that if I was to break,  I would feel it with the intestity  that I had loved him.  I have come to learn that to find your soul mate doesn't necessarily mean that you will end up with them... Often times,  it is too painful.  Soul mates serve a purpose for a time. ( I didn't know that then) 

But on that lone night,  I let him go. I stopped waiting,  I stopped hoping that he would be back,  his purpose in my life was over.  And that is when I broke open. 

I felt the heart break,  embraced it,  went through it,  cried,  wallowed,  nursed the ache,  wished it would end,  had a pity party for myself and just when I thought that this life would end,  I found the light break through. I saw myself rise from the pain,  the scorn,  the obsession with losing love. 

When I look back on the purpose of these two men,  the former took me through a phase of numbness even after I went through the heart break.  I stop to cry,  I stopped to feel and no amount of pain gave me an opening to feel.  The years died away blunt and dark and yet I lived. 

The former taught me how to love me right back to restoration,  in him leaving,  he gave me back my ability to be anything that I wanted to be. He gave me back myself and like a thread untangled from a cloth,  I felt myself unravel into a version of me that I have waited to meet. 

Talk about "a fall in the pit and a gain in the wit"

So here I am,  learning that we break sometimes  or even many times  but it is in our brokenness that the light gets in.  And this light makes way into our beings and restores us back.  It is in our dark moments that the sun shines brightest because we need the light to find us and bring us back redemption for the broken pieces we hold. 

God bless the broken roads of our lives,  they have led us straight into beautiful ends.  

GRIEF HAS A FACE

There is something about grief that makes me humble.
Humble to the reality that it is a mater of time before all this fades away into a distant memory.

Grief re-echoes my limitations my fears and my vulnerabilities. In the quiet of my pain, I wary and worry for the impending future. I then hope to find peace within for what is yet to come.
I wonder if the dead have it easier, if only they would tell us. I ache with the pain of knowing that this life makes it impossible to go the long stretch  without re-sounding the bells of pain and fear, heartache and grief.

So I sit here, caught in my grief, captured ever so to what is unknown to me.
When will the darkness lift? If it lifts how do I pick up my cage and rebuild new walls? Do I just go on with my grief hanging around my sleeve? Will this pain ever be redeemed? Will loving another soul change the story? For I know the tale keeps on, the cycle doesn't change.

So I grieve and carry my heart open. I grieve and let the tears flow. I let the ache for a while, for no one ever tells you of the amount of pain in grieving. Grief has a face.

But ever so subtle and real, I hear a still small voice say; " Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal" And in that moment I know, everything will be just fine.

IN MY EULOGY

 In my eulogy

Remember that I lived

That I stood the taste of time

Remember that I made it to this end

That I fought the good fight!

And in my eulogy

Remember that I loved in my own way

Remember that I cried for my dear ones

And remember that I shared this life with them

And in my eulogy,

Laugh!

Laugh at the mistakes I made

For in those moments I was human

Imperfect to the core!

Mourn the things I didn’t get to do

For in them, was my hope for a better day;

And then dust off!

Right there as you sum up the life that I lived

Dust off and move on

Keep living

Keep laughing

Keep merry

Make sure you eat

And dance and stay happy

For I want you to keep on keeping on

I want you to be happy

To be hopeful

That while I am gone...

I am only off to the other side

Until then

Sing the psalms of life lived hopeful.

For I will be in resting for a very long time

So long dear ones.

And then you will say

Rest child...Rest In paradise

DEATH WHERE IS YOUR STING?

When a friend dies, it hits you hard!

It hits you so bad because then you start to wonder, "Did I love them enough, “was I there to support them and give them all my best?" You start to re-evaluate what would have been, what you should have been. And then you sit cold and frozen that they really are gone.

The night comes and as the night goes on, you pick yourself up between the spasms of fear, and you ask silently, "Are they really gone?"  But you know the answer to that question. So you cry bitterly to the power that death displays every time it takes a loved one.

When a loved one dies,

It stings, it re-awakens every dead sense in you, you desire to hate less and love more. To spread more hope and peace than you would otherwise. It calls you out on your trivial indulgences in bickering and endless fight among each other and within yourself.

Death makes you grow before your time but grow you do. Death steals from all of us; from our every core she dances with us all day long only to snatch the best dancer at the peak of their dance. And she drains what is left of the being. I wonder not where her sting is, for I have felt it and lived with it.

This somber state too will pass but the real fight is in keeping these people alive in our memories, the guilt in forgetting how they really looked, the search for old photos, the search through what you used to say, the need to keep you alive. I know I do see each of you in still photos where time held you static and kept you forever, yet I wish the memories to come would bring you along...

It never gets easy to keep saying goodbye; there was never an easy goodbye... Maybe beautiful beginnings and amazing in betweens but never one easy goodbye. So we dare to move on, we dare to leave the place where your candles burnt out. We dare to go on without you, we risk losing you in the busy of life but each step we take, and we carry the burden of yet another heart break.

We long to know what the other side is, we long to believe that the ever after really holds you waiting. We long to trust that you are okay now but we know not of what is on the other side of the grave. So we cry bitterly at the realization that you are gone and only what you did in the dash (-) is what we are left with.

Rest dear ones, for in due time death will silence us too...Until then. We bitterly miss you

P.S: In memory of my departed loved ones:

My mother; Vidah Namuddu Zirimenya

15 years and it feels like yesterday

(1966-2003)

Danielson Barbara (Babzee)

(1992-2014)

Joel. B. Ntwatwa (Nevender)

The grave robbed me when your candles where brightest

We carry on, but we dare say that, anything can happen even to us here...It is never a win-win with death.