A Pause

Dianne Cabelus Braley

source: Mario Tama/Getty Images. Los Angeles Times

A pause in life, we can take it or create it: even pay for it—buying time to figure things out. A delay amid tragedy, death, illness forcing us to do the same. To reflect and be still. These times of stillness, solitude, and reflection, whether forced or sought out, instill change. Hidden paths become uncovered, and new ones get created. Doors close and new ones open in journeys ended or just beginning.

A glimmer of light dances with the shadows of hope somewhere in the tunnel; we weren’t sure it had an ending but now see it might. Thrust upon us, the year’s events are nothing we would have planned but everything we could have foreseen.

We have been still worried and fearful. Shivering and weak in our fragility, we have feared and cried. Strong, we have come to need less and value more. The air hung thick around heavy hearts, minds, souls, watching numbers climb and heroes fall. Our tears froze in time as if love never existed, and we remain numb and void, unable to remember lives in the sharing of our grief—paused.

Insurrections and demagogues, burning cities ignited by a desperate need for change. Misinformation, me-too, hurt, hate, race, fate uniting and dividing us, and we can’t breathe. All piled on to the unseen enemy spreading across the globe. And we still cannot breathe.

The sun stays out longer, the birds are coming back—the same as every year.  The tunnel is shortening and brighter. Hope has taken shape.

Where are we now, and where have we been? Another pause. When can we remember those who we’ve lost, standing close and feeling? More than numbers.

We will reflect, and we will grow, but will we learn or forget? For no one to die in vain, we cannot move forward in ignorance. They are more than numbers.

Going back to who we were, we can’t un-know what we know. Will our division define us, or our unity in the experience create a new way, forging new paths, opening new doors. Let there be light.

After we tear our masks off and breathe close, hands touching, where will we go?

Dianne Cabelus Braley is a registered nurse blogger and freelance writer from Massachusetts. @diannecbraley