It lay in the attic near the window – the window such as it was. Eons of wispy cobwebs filtered what little light existed to barely reveal the presence of the old wooden crate nearly obscured in the semi-darkness.
Approaching cautiously – the combined fears of falling through the ancient flooring; the startling scurry of rats; and spiders whose webs made progress agonizingly slow – the treasure-hunter paused.
What little hands once held that scraggly-furred bunny? And that hat! Part of a play perhaps?
Gently he removed the precious mementoes of what must have been sweet memories.
Then, as he brushed away particles of insulation, he stopped. There, stamped on the cover of the old wooden box, were the once-bold-but-long-since-faded letters: ‘DANGER, DYNAMITE.’
Hesitant, alone, and afraid, unsuccessfully shrugging away unreasonable fears of impending doom, his fingers appearing bony and skeletal-like in the cobweb-enshrouded shadows, he reached out and slowly, ever so slowly, lifted the creaking lid.
There was nothing there.
The box was empty.
Such often describes life after significant loss: empty.
What once was life filled with love and laughter, wherein lay dreams the two had pursued together, vision, purpose, and direction fueled by the fires of passion that then burned brightly, is now empty.
Life after loss is empty.
Your soulmate is gone.
What now to do?
Walk.
Walk. Put one foot in front of the other.
Go to the mountain alone.
Wander.
Wander down pathways which may seem little more than side trips but which very well may “open up vistas of genuine discovery and insight.”
And in the wandering, know this, as Jerry Sittser continues in his book “A Grace Disguised – how the soul grows through loss,” that “there is no arrival in this kind of journey.”
Even when there seems little hope we will ever find it again, choose to live life.
Walk.
