Sorrow

I sat and thought to myself, "This isn't real. It can't be happening." I fidgeted with my dress, running my fingers along the black edge of the seams, up and down, up and down. I hate this. I don't want to be here. I want to be some other place - any other place. I know it is supposed to be a celebration. I know that deep inside, but the little girl in me doesn't want to celebrate. She wants to cry. It isn't supposed to be this way. She'd rather pretend it is somebody else's service she's attending, somebody else... but it's not. So instead she swallows. The little girl swallows down the lump. She takes a deep breath and puts on the shawl of control and wraps the strength it provides tightly around her, covering the little girl so only I remain. And I am ok. Because I know the truth. He is with Jesus and that is the reason we celebrate. That doesn't mean we don't cry. That doesn't mean there isn't sorrow. That just means that there is a silver lining, that this isn't it, that the sorrow won't last forever. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. I tell my little girl this, that it is ok to cry. And we cry together: in sadness and in joy, in bitter and in sweet, in disbelief and in hope. The little girl and the woman. We cry together and it is ok. We are ok.