There are all sorts of nooks and cranny’s that your grief is waiting silently to jump out and shake you. Some days it causes you to gasp, other times it knocks you right off your feet. You are trapped in the fear, the despair, the unknown for a while. The space between can almost feel normal. Your body settles. Your shoulders drop a little Your mind shifts it’s focus. For a day or a week or maybe a little longer, things feel alright. It’s the space between a report card that wishes he could play all the games in gym. It’s the space between harder days at the rink where his body looks spent after ten minutes on the ice, but he loves it so he pushes through. It’s the space between mornings where he comments that his body feels sore. The space between birthday party or play date invitations to visit the climbing wall or go on a hike, where now you need to let another person in on what they might expect if he joins. It’s the space between getting a “gotcha” at school for playing a good defence in gym and knowing that it was very likely intentionally given to help perk him up. It’s the space between all the things that were once not given a second thought, that now remind me it’s there. Lingering in the background. His future. Our future. So many unknowns. Before our life was, without even knowing it, almost completely lived in the space between. Now, we are learning awkwardly, painfully, and somewhat fearfully to dance in and out of the dark and scary corners and when we can, trying to relish in the moments that exist in that space between. I don’t want to live afraid. I don’t want to spend the next decade holding my breath. But damn would I ever like to know how you exhale and lean in, when you never know what’s about to jump out at you just around the corner and force you out of the cozy and safe space between.
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