Here's To You, Mr. H

I have never really understood the line between laughing and crying. You know, those little moments when your body can't figure out whether to laugh or cry. I don't like to cry, and although I can't imagine many people really love it, I avoid crying like the plague. I walk away from people crying, or I avoiding looking at them at all. If I even feel a tear forming, I bite the inside of my cheek and force myself to stop. Most of the time I find myself laughing in the middle of the most inappropriate situations because it is the only acceptable way for me to cope. I know by now you are psychoanalyzing me, truthfully though, I just don't like showing emotion. But, as I have found out many times before this, everyone has a breaking point. Even those few people you just knew your whole life were as tough as nails.

It's not fun losing a friend. Quite frankly, it sucks. As I reflect on my visit to see my friends family, I realize that while I am sad he is gone, I am even more heartbroken about everything that he won't get to see his children do with their lives. But as I and many I know believe, there are reasons for everything and we can't control how long we stay here. We continue to have everlasting faith that there is a plan for all of us, and that we must do everything in our power to live the lives we were given to their fullest potential.

This doesn't mean we can't be sad.

I know my friend because of his mother. I worked for her for over four years, and while many people have mixed opinions of her, I love her like the grandmother I never had. I have always thought that she, quite literally, could move a mountain if she wanted to. In all the years that I have known her, I have never once seen her broken. But as I said before, we all fall once in a while. We were sitting at the kitchen table with her grandchildren. I was surprised at how well they all were despite the circumstances. We were laughing, telling stories from when the girls were little. But before I knew it, and I can't even tell you what she said because the only thing I could comprehend was this woman - who for so long was a rock in the face of anything - was crying.

We have perceptions of people that can last the better part of our lives, but in one instant, that can all change. I saw this woman, my friend, broken. For a moment, I didn't know what to do. But when the tears clouded my vision, I knew that was all I could do. No words can make it better, and no actions will ever fill that void. It was then that I realized how real life is. It was then that I realized how emotion can govern the way you control your life. Grief cuts you apart, and you have to choose whether or not to put the pieces back together.

They say that time heals all wounds. I'm not sure if this is entirely true or not. I like to think that time really has nothing to do with it. Maybe it is that each day, you wake up and you make the conscious decision to live your life the best that you can. You will never be the same, there really is no way that you can be. But I like to think that when you've hit rock bottom, there is still some semblance of a human being inside of you, willing you to claw your way back up to the top. You may never truly reach the top again, but with each inch comes more light, and it is that light that truly saves us in the end.

We were all still sitting at the kitchen table. One of the girls was squirming around in the chair with me, and we were absentmindedly eating potatoes out of a dish. I looked up in time to hear my friend say something about a silly habit her son had as a kid. I glanced around just as the table took a collective breath. The thin line had returned.

And we laughed.