Life Through Poetry

Guilt and Grief

Sometimes I feel like I haven't earned the right to grieve.
Because there's always someone else that is hurting more from it than I am. Yet, I still grieve, but I must grieve with guilt. I grieve. And then I grieve for the fact that I am now at the point in life where I have to grieve. Where childhood innocence is stripped away, and reality is left in its wake - in a single wake. Where death is no longer circumstance, but sometimes a choice, and grandparents aren't invincible from the ravages of lost memory and time. Where your parents' hair grays and eyes crinkle, and you didn't notice until looking at old photos of all of you together as a family. Before sisters were married and divorced. Before you were engaged and moved out. Before you realized that family is like blood, but often like blood that drips from an open cut. Still yours, but no longer with you. Still belongs, but separated from you. And it wasn't your choice.
Just like it wasn't your choice to start grieving. But I don't know that it ever stops.