Sorrow

You know that feeling you get when someone calls to tell you a precious family member of yours has died?

First you are stunned and can't move.

Your mind is a fog.

There is something causing your throat to close up.
You can't swallow.

You feel nauseated.

This pressure grows in your chest and hurts so bad.

It takes your breath away.

You settle yourself into a chair.

Then your body starts to heave with waves of convulsing coughs and the tears flow.

But not JUST tears.

Your head becomes so full of congestion and you can't breathe, yet you continue crying.

If the tightness in your sinuses gets any worse, you feel your head will explode.

The sadness is maddening.

You lie down on your side and curl your legs up to your chest.
Staring.
Just staring.
Then you blink, so you can see again as the tears roll sideways across your nose, onto your pillow.
By now you are breathing through your mouth because your nose is so plugged you can't use it to breathe.
You close your eyes and hope to sleep so the pain in your head and in your heart will subside.

No one has died........Yet this sorrow still holds me.

Toog Loves

She giggles when her mom lifts her high over her head.
The sound of her little tiny feet slapping quickly, in short little steps, across the tile floor,
instantly puts a smile on my face.
Her little index finger reaches out to push the buttons on the stereo.
"No Kylie, NO!" Her mom scolded in a harsh, deep tone.
She turns to look at me, with eyebrows drawn in a questioning form.
I'm not smiling.
She lowers her little head very slowly, as if she was suddenly, almost too frozen to move.
Her tiny bottom lip curls down.
Her heart is broke.
The tears flow, as she cries.
She lifts those slim little arms up for me to hold her.
She's is trouble, but how can I resist.
My first grandchild....I've waited months for her to be old enough to perform that very action.
I reach down to lift her up.
She places a tight, sweet hug around my neck, and her little hand pats my back.
Her heavy breaths are warm against my throat, as her tears wet my shirt.
I cradle her in my arms, taking in the tenderness of the moment.
She hugs tighter.
So sweet.
Do they have to grow up?
I bow my head down to her ear.
"I love you Toog." I whispered.
She raises her body off my chest to look me in the eye, with those big water-filled turquoise eyes and long moist eyelashes.
Her little arms cross in front of her, to do the sign for love.
Awww.....my own heart just rose to my throat, I want to cry.
She may be too young to announciate that word with her own mouth, but she understands, already, what those 4 letters mean.
Love....it really is a language.
A language where no words are necessary.