Crying

I'm not sure where this post will go but I need to write something to get it out of my head so I can perhaps make better sense of what is tumbling around there.

I am crying, I am not depressed, I am just crying.

I sit here and type and tears fall slowly down my cheeks, I don't bother to wipe them up, they need to fall to cleanse and release the emotions within.

One winds its way down my chin and on to my neck and then downward to pool on my chest.

Another follows, until a small lake forms. I am not sobbing, just crying, one small tear at a time.

So much has happened over the last week or so that has knocked me for a six. There have been happy times but all have been tinged by my sense of sadness at a life so tragically lost. So pretty much every day, the odd tear will fall, sometimes without me even realising it is there until I feel it running down my cheek.

I could put it down to menopause - after all that is supposed to knock your hormones and hence your emotions all over the shop - but that would be a cop out.

I know why I am crying, partly it is because as much as I try to understand, I can not find it within myself, I am not angry at his decision, but I am saddened by not only the loss of his life but for those he has left behind.

Yesterday was his funeral, and I saw his aged father struggle to understand, I saw one of his daughter's sit there and not shed a tear - and she is the one I worry about most.

I saw my brother in law's coffin and I feel I should have reached out more, even though we were never that close.

I saw my sister in law and nieces struggling with the loss of their husband and father, I know that things are going to be tough for them - but I don't know what to say to make it better.

But the main reason I am crying is that I know how close this all could have been for me and my family, I heard him say the words to me - I am so thankful that he reached out and hung on because of how much he loved me. But I feel guilty that I was afforded this when others in our family have not had that luxury. I feel guilty that our lives will continue in the pattern we have become accustomed to and theirs will never be the same.

And so the odd tear slips from my eyes, and occasionally when I least expect it, a sob shakes my body, for what I have I done to deserve to have my family still together when theirs is torn apart?