I DON'T WANT TO HEAR A SAD STORY

I don't want to hear a sad story
Full of heartbreak and desire
The last time I felt like this
I was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire

The sense of loss was overwhelming.

For most of her adult life she had had his wisdom, understanding and secure presence to guide her.

But now he was gone and all she was left with was the silence.

She hadn't even dared to pick up her guitar all the time her sorrow had gripped her like a deadly snake, refusing to release her from the intense sadness.

No matter how many times she opened her mouth to sing, the notes simply refused to come out. It was as if the music within her had been silenced by the indisputable reality of death. What was there to sing about if everything could be so easily lost and taken away in the blink of an eye?

She had become an involuntary mute but hoped the music would come back to her once again when this terrible state of suspended time had passed.

As she lay in the hammock at the back of her garden, she gazed up at the branches of the trees above her and saw them as hands clasped in prayer. She was looking for signs in everything as a way to believe that he wasn't permanently gone forever.

Swaying gently, she felt a great desire to be like a baby again, back when she was blissfully unaware of a concept such as death, in thrall to just her basic primary senses.

Nature felt like a mother to her right now with the elements appearing to be sympathetic to her state of mind, bringing calm breezes and warm, dappled sunshine to heal her body and soul.

As long as she remained like this, she felt she could almost dissolve into non-existence and become unified in a state of oblivion with her lost love.

Deep in a dream, she could hear his voice calling to her. He was so vivid, she felt like she could almost touch him. Waking up to discover it was an illusion, she was unceremoniously returned to her world of pain, and she rued ever falling asleep in the first place.

Perhaps she should just stay awake permanently so as not to dream of him. She'd rather live with the continuity of a brutal reality than be tormented by momentary glimpses of a dream lost in the past.

She found herself remembering a quote someone once told her about how tears cleansed the soul. It sounded tacky at the time, but now she could feel the truth in that statement.

As she felt the release of warm tears fall from her eyes down her cheeks, she suddenly realised the purity in feeling pain so intensely. This was being alive in its truest form and in her own way she was defying death by feeling sorrow. If she was as dead as he was then she would feel nothing.

And as she realised this for herself, she felt compelled to fetch her guitar and attempt her first strum of chords since he died.

With each brush of her fingers against the fret board she felt the power of music returning to her like some eternal magic.

Closing her eyes to hear the sound of her instrument, she could feel the presence of her lover close by and she began to sing to him directly as if he were there beside her.  Her new song was like an incantation and felt as if she was summoning him like Eurydice from the underworld to return amongst the living once again.

Without even having to think about what she was singing, she composed her lament in real time without conceit.

If death had an enemy then surely it was music.

After singing her song in the garden, she felt healed somehow, as if she had found a state of grace through finally expressing what she couldn't seem to before.

She would be alright.