Grief

 Grief is a black hole in your heart. Nothing can fill it. You can't fill it with books, or music, or food. You can't fill it with projects or work. You can distract yourself with those things, bury it for awhile, but it comes back on you when you least expect it.

When grief catches up to you, everything is colored by sadness. Everything hurts. You might smile at some amusing distraction, or even laugh at a joke and then immediately return to aching. The sadness is so great it's like a physical thing that's far bigger than you.

There was a person, who meant so much to you, maybe more than you knew or acknowledged, and now that person is gone from your life. Everything they touched in your life, even things you didn't realize, is now forever changed. 

As a Christian, I believe in an afterlife. I believe that I will see my father again. That doesn't make it hurt less, or lessen that sadness I feel today. The many things that I've thrown at the emptiness in myself have not filled it up at all.

There are many people in the world tonight who are grieving, and I feel for them. I wish them peace, even while I sit here feeling that it is far distant. It is a beautiful thing to have loved someone. Some day that may be a consolation. Tonight, I am just sad.