Shattering. All is stripped away. Everything obliterated except my awareness, and even that is fogged in by numbness and grief. I awake with a pit in my stomach, a heavy pain reminding me again that Kent is dead. Weeks repeat this daily hurt. I don’t know who I am without Kent in my life. He was the center of my world for over forty years. Our lives intertwined not only as husband and wife, but co-pastors serving the same congregation, travel companions on international adventures, best friends walking in nature, soulmates moved by music and powerful films, racial injustice and visions of hope. When Kent died, the person I was died, too. I don’t know who I am now, lost, unmoored. Nothing makes sense. Nothing brings a smile. I have no energy nor motivation, paralyzed amidst broken shards that cannot be put back together. Emptiness exhausts me. I cannot move. There’s no place I want to go, though here is
a gaping hole. I only know to crawl into silence.
By Vicky Curtiss
Holy Lament member
www.sienaretreatcenter.org
