#SOL16: Grief - Nothing Stays Put

from my art journal - "For in Grief, nothing stays put" - 5.28.16
(gesso, acrylic paints, newspaper, white marker, pan pastel, watercolor pencils)

One of the hardest things to come to terms with, if coming to terms is even possible, is the way grief with all of its power re-emerges so unexpectedly. In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis writes about this. He says,

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? 

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? (p. 56)

His account rings true. Out of nothing discernible, grief rises like a rogue wave, appearing suddenly, unexpectedly. Such grief submerges. And though you don't die, it just feels that way.  It is a paralysis that widows learn to stand inside, even as it unbalances the heart.

Sometimes the wait for a return to balance is long.
Sometimes a rebalancing happens quickly.
The only constant is the not knowing.
This is the way of grief.