Words from Inside My Head

After a traffic accident, in which a drunk driver hit a local family’s car, killing the father and injuring the mother and their two children, our village responded with all the help it could, including love and money for the supporting family, friends and the survivors. We tend to think of loss in the immediacy of the trauma, especially since the children were there when it happened. We think of their loss in terms of living the rest of their lives without their father. But there’s this other thing going on, inside in the here and now, and if you haven’t lost a love, even one who’s still living, most often there’s no talk about it, no explanation about what is happening because it’s hard to describe and because there are so many other things – physically injury, for example – to deal with. But this also something painful and real happening, part of the grief process..

Here’s what it’s like for the kids 
each morning,
waking up and
for a moment,
it seems okay

and then
they remember.
This will keep on
happening,
every day,
and as if

each day
isn’t hard enough,
as if

going to sleep
isn’t hard enough,
there’s the morning’s
remembering.
This will go on
and on
and on
for a long
long time
and it hasn’t
even been
a week.