Storm Surge I

When Loss First Breaks Over You

---

The Tide

Storm Surge is where the sea first crosses ashore.
It arrives as a squall.

A telephone call.
A diagnosis.
A final breath.
A knock at the door.
A sentence that divides life into before and after.

Over days or months,
illness redraws the land beneath our feet.
The tide does not retreat.

Outside, morning continues.
Inside, the map no longer matches the land.

The sea has crossed inland.

Storm Surge is
the overwhelming arrival
of a reality
the heart
has not yet learned to enter.

---

The Sea

The first movements of grief are weather.

Thoughts drift apart.
Time refuses its ordinary rhythm.

The body knows before the mind does.

Simple tasks require unusual effort.
Conversations continue.
Words seem to arrive from a great distance.

You may wonder
whether you are grieving correctly.

Storm Surge is measured one breath at a time.
The next breath becomes enough.

Like standing in rough water,
the body instinctively gives itself
to the next breath,
the next hour,
the next sunrise.

There will be another time
to trace
the altered shoreline.

Storm Surge asks
only one thing
of today:
Remain afloat.

---

Along this shore

Sleep becomes unfamiliar.

The body startles before the mind can name why.

Calm is swallowed by waves of disbelief.

People speak to you with kindness while their words barely reach you.

The smallest ordinary task asks everything of you.

These experiences are evidence that love is learning an altered landscape.

---

A lantern for the crossing

Let the sea be the sea today.
Let the storm pass on its own.
For now, let the next faithful thing be enough.

Breathing.
Accepting another person’s hand.
Remaining right where you are.

The shoreline will not always feel so altered.
Today,
let it be enough to know
you are not the first traveler
to stand in these waters.