different

"Who are you?" I ask the face in the mirror.

Grief is a transformative process. I have found it to be as visible as it is invisible. The heart cracks wide and sorrow pours out.

And the life that follows grief? As if you play a part in a show where everything changed and nobody told you. Strangely similar and vastly different. But people still need to eat; they always do.

I wear it. In lines where tears have carved their path. I smile and see where sorrow etched a story. These months look like years on my face. And the frame has thinned. I keep them shorter, my curls, so less can paint the picture of more.

I feel it. It wears like a heavy cloak. I can laugh and live and heal but I feel it.

I remember it. May 18th. A day of heightened sensations. Where, in the rush and the broken, my brain took a blow. Words are slower, memories escape. If one could describe dementia; this.

I walk it. This journey mapped out by grace. One piece of a family. A family of three who, quite differently, live the same story.