Thursday, April 16, 2020

Solace In Faith.


I want to sob. I want to be held, but not just by anyone – I want to be held in my beloved’s arms. To this very day, dreaming of him always precedes an unscheduled almost urgent attention on my healing journey.

That’s how I choose to deal with his dreams. They can be canny sometimes, so blunt and unforgiving. I guess it’s my subconscious working overtime again, reaching deep into the pits of the wreckage caused by grief. At this point I am satisfied with how it has chosen to unravel. Fighting to have control over it, has always led to me feeling distraught and inadequate.

I have always been enough for Mbu when we were together, which is different in my dreams since his passing. I am not the woman his heart beat for. It feels like such betrayal. In these dreams there’s no warning that he no longer feels the same as he when we were together, yet the confrontation always suggests otherwise.

I wonder if every widow has gone through such, especially with the challenging times of the lock down. We are left with nothing much but our thoughts and those phases of our healing journeys we’ve been skipping.

I am an advocate for healing.

I have experienced the beautiful fruit it bears, but first the pruning. And oh how it lingers to the soul. There’s such an un-superficial gratification about the healing journey, because you can almost never be comfortable. It has vigorous turns that often come unannounced and you have nothing but trust in your faith that you’ll make it through.

Faith is one of the best guide for healing. I say guide because it will guide you better than anyone can, not forcing its suggestions, but simply advising from a place of empathy. It will also give you peace, because unlike man, it doesn’t judge but offers solace. It is also very patient. Which is great because there is a lot of falling and repeating of lessons on any healing journey.

There is also a lot of self-discovery on this healing journey. Although not all that we discover we invite and show off to the world. Sometimes we discover that we are vile and cruel. This is mostly grossed from bitterness that creeps in unnoticed until it has consumed us; nevertheless, it is to be dealt with cautiously if we’re ever to become better and admission of guilt is often the first step in the right direction.

But who wouldn’t be tempted to hate. After all, the pain of loss is an un-anchored boat in an endless sea. You have to anchor it much too quickly if you’re ever to overcome being tossed back and fro by hate, blame, disappoint and everything else you can imagine.

Isn’t it amazing that it is always the bad emotions that want to run about in our healing journey? One moment you’re dealing with self-blame, then the next it’s confusion about who really have become.
Again, I say let faith be your guide. Faith in your progress, faith in your need for existence. Faith in better, more beautiful days.

Yours in healing.
Fortunate Zungu-Ludaka

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