Threads

One widow I met said that her life as like a purse turned upside down, its contents crashing to the ground, scattering and breaking all over.“That was my life." Then she said "I’m like, where do I start picking up pieces, and what do I do? I had no idea what to do, it is difficult to talk to family and friends about my feelings."

Though they try to help her through the grieving process, she said they do not always understand.

Me, I would liken it to a wall hanging. A big handmade one that has the thick threads and the wonderful twists and turns and colors in the weaving. The threads of life. With Jim and I supplying the threads and pattern. We were beating the twists and adding color each day. Our life together took us years to find and once together we weren't letting anything stop the joining of our threads. I would say we found some knots along the way. We worked them out and continued on. We had splashes of fun and that was the color.

Yes, a tapestry of our life. A beautiful work of two people in love and loving and as such laughing. It also was unfinished and suddenly stopped. Jim's death was a cut across the weave and threads to left in shock and some tangled and others just never to be picked up again.

Cut off straight across in the middle of the weaving and there are these threads hanging down, raw and rough and not knowing where to go. Those are me. Those threads are the rest of what was our life. Gone. Seeing the pieces on the other side of the loom of life and not able to reach them anymore. Dreams and goals and hopes.

We were in the middle of the weaving. Who does that? who ruins a beautiful thing, why? Why?

No, those confused threads didn't know how to start the weaving up again. Feeling like the weaver dropped it and left it on it's own to start all over half way thru the beautiful work that was life.

How to pick up the pieces? Which ones to start with? It was tough. It took a long time and yet it still feels like yesterday.

Oh, the threads have started weaving themselves again, but it is slow and it hurts when they touch each other. There is pain because of the missing element in the threads, it is not found in the fabric, it is not there anymore to make make the weave whole again, to add a joy and color to the piece. That missing element is Jim.