40 Years

Not an easy day.  It would have been our darling Jamie's 40th birthday today.  This is the first of his birthdays without him here.

Grief fills the room up
of my absent child.

-- William Shakespeare

The map of this country defies cartography,
there are no expressways or shortcuts.
Instead, you must come to the City of Grief
as an immigrant, someone who has come to dwell,
be ready to stay a long time.  The borders
are vague and indefinite, no checkpoints
or guard posts, difficult to tell
when you've entered or left.  And the coasts,
too, are uncharted, rocky shoals, desolate reefs.
Throw away the guidebooks.  Enter on your knees.
Go past the shores of mourning.  See how loss
has shaped the topography, each contour line.
The map of the heart has no relief.

-- from The Geography of Grief  by Barbara Crooker