The Most Horribly Untrue Cliches

by | Sep 28, 2011 | 0 comments

You will always have your memories.

First of all, no you will not.  Ever hear of aging and not remembering everything from thirty years ago?

Furthermore, the reason you have only the memories, recollections of a past life, is because your spouse is dead and your old life gone in an instant.  This is not a comfort.  Still you do cling to them, gather them up, write them down, put them in a very safe place- because there will not be any more- because the weighty importance of them signifies the end of something- it is finished- it is done.

Time heals all wounds. 


Definitely the least true cliche.  Over time, one adapts as has been said numerous times before- as an amputee learns to walk on one leg.  I’m not saying some kind of healing is impossible, but that time – the progression of existence- does not bring about healing.

Time takes you away.  This is the secret you know instantly when you learn of the demise of your loved one.  That you will forget.  That you are on a train ride and the train is already speeding ahead and the landscape will change and you will have to acknowledge that you can’t get off.  Time is a kidnapper that holds you captive and let’s you watch the place you left from the last car, leaning painfully over the rail, until it’s completely out of view.

More importantly, integral to any kind of healing in this kind of loss- is something else- justice.  The sense of wrongfulness and injustice- this does not fade or even evolve with the changing landscape.  

JAC

September 28, 2011

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