Path Through Grief

She walked with purpose, as if every step would erase a little bit more of her pain. As if she could outrun a ghost. The path she took was worn from the feet of the many before her, all following the same line of deceit. The path itself was surrounded with willows and packed dirt that lacked the warmth of growing plants. The tips of the willows were painted in the gray luminosity of a moon half full and as she walked beneath them they seemed to weep for her, even the owls sounded mournful.

‘Just a little farther’ she thought, ‘if I can just make it around that bend. If I can just pass that hill. Just a little farther.’ She continued to walk. She convinced herself that with every step she felt a little lighter and she begged to believe her own fallacy. Yet the forest still wept. The path veered and it opened into a beautiful clearing full of wild flowers of every color imaginable. A palette of seeds in every color had scattered the ground and fought to survive and those that triumphed were magnificent. Walking through the clearing she lowered her hands to gently graze the flowers. Trilliums, Jessamines, Violets, Asters, and she paused; she always stopped at the Daisies. Crouching, she reached out her fingers as if to touch the petals and hesitated. She felt a visceral surge of emotions seeing the Daisies swaying innocently in the breeze. She reached violently into the earth and she pulled at the roots, ripping the stems, and plucking the petals. What lay afterwards was carnage. The corpses of the Daisies looked up at her as if to ask ‘why have you done this?’ but she just got up and walked on.

The pallid dirt path seemed to curl and wind around the trees, confusing to most, but it was as familiar to the woman as the lines of her own skin. She continued to march on around every twist and turn that the path could throw at her until she was forced to stop. A weeping willow had wept with all the life it had, from its roots to each of its leaves, and now lay across the path so that it was impossible to move forward. Walking up and down the length of the tree and finding no way around she gazed longingly at the rest of the path, barely visible through the fountain of leaves. “If you don’t move I’m going to cut you down,” the woman proclaimed. The sound reverberated unsteadily  down the line of trees and down the carved dirt path. The tree didn’t move. “If you move, I’ll give you a…” it was at this point that the woman reached down to search her pockets for anything that might convince the tree to move. The only thing she could find was a daisy that must have slipped into her pocket when she was in the flower field. “If you let me through, I’ll give you a daisy.” The tree, unappeased, did not even sway. The woman just stood there in forlorn silence. A breeze brushed the leaves of the trees and they made a melancholy rustling noise. As she turned to look, her eyes followed the direction the leaves were blowing and her eyes spotted a smaller path deceitfully nestled between two trees adjacent to the right side of the path. 

The path, not stopping to wait for her, unfurled continuously. Her feet ached and her back sloped from carrying her weight. Her legs gave out and she slumped in the middle of the path. She spread out her body and went limp. Eyes shut, heart heavy, and limbs tired. Deciding it was an appropriate time, a cloud overhead decided to let go of its burden. When the droplets hit the woman’s skin it intermingled with her own downpour. She just let go, never moving from her spot, never wanting to move. Time moves differently in this forest. Minutes passed and turned into hours, hours passed and turned into days, days passed and turned into years. The cloud, now fully unburdened, started to move. A whisper of wind brushed the woman’s cheek telling her it was her time to move as well. Her limbs continued to ache, a new throbbing sensation rippling through them, but the woman knew it was time to go so she persisted.

She dragged herself along the path and gasped when she saw a light at the end. Moving each leg a little faster she started loping like a newly born fawn, falling down and scraping her hands, but then she started to run. She ran up the path and the world opened up around her. She felt light, free even. She ran to the crest of the hill and looked down; the view was glorious. The mountain she had climbed was a triumph to her strength and the hiccups she had on her way were merely that, just hiccups. As her eyes panned over the valley, she saw a little stump of gray dotting the landscape. Shivering with horrid recognition, she refused to look, but it was as if the memories were pulling her towards the stone. She strained to move some other way, any other way, afraid to lose her newly gained freedom but the pull was magnetic. 

Arriving at the marble marker she read clearly the word ‘Daisy’. Her heart seemed to swell threatening to burst from her ribcage but instead decided to leak through her eyes. Even with the sunlight pouring, she wept. She wept for Daisy and she wept for herself. She wept at the thought that she had moved on only to find out that it was not true, because she loved her daughter and she would never stop. She reached into her pockets to find them overflowing with wildflowers she had not picked; yet there they were. She tenderly emptied her pockets and laid the flowers at the base of the grave: Trilliums, Jessamines, Violets, Asters, and a single Daisy. Her heart was heavy in an entirely different way, exhausted from her walk but she was not burdened, she didn’t have to express her love through sadness. Taking courage with the wind tickling her nose she walked forward to find her own path.