Sad Isn't Bad

I take it with me everywhere I go ... a good friend of mine described perfectly how I feel. She said, Sad isn't bad, when I told her that was my emotional state ... this simple phrase makes me well up yet again. It rings true, for those of us that understand that grief must not be hurried or hustled out the door. It isn't a bad thing, it is a testimony to the love we had/have for the one we miss. 

My sister is no longer with us, no longer physically accessible. She is not a stone's throw away, or available for a quick text or check in call. I think of her, remember her and long for her, and have to accept over and over again that there is a great gulf that separates us, one neither of us can transverse, and I hope to God she wouldn't want to; I hope she is where my Lord is ...

The tears come in streams, rivulets that coarse past my nose and threaten to drown me if I don't stem the flow. Perhaps you cry with me, missing her too? Perhaps thinking of Antonella, Tony, Nell's (she went by all three names), makes you grin and then shortly thereafter, weep too ... or perhaps you are feeling the same about someone near and dear to you that is no more?

Sad isn't bad ... sigh

I cannot write something uplifting to free me from this sorrow. I get to be sad and say it, and you get to too. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, ok?

Let the tears flow, sop them up if you must, but certainly, do not stop them until you are good and ready.