The Lines on a Face

July 2022

It’s been less than five months since the loss, but I look markedly different. I’m not sure how much of that I should attribute to puffiness from crying, dehydration, worry, or whatever else an undigestable serving of grief does to your physical form. Not that I was aging super gracefully before, but the lines on my face are rutting at a hyper-accelerated pace.

They’ve been there for years - laugh lines and crow’s feet forged from countless hours of smiling and unrestrained joy. Truth be told, I was actually kind of proud of them. To me, they were subtle indications of a life well-lived.

It is painfully ironic, literally, that the same cheek muscles that were often sore from laughing with Kara are now constantly aching from crying over the loss of her. And those exact same lines caused by utter bliss, have been etched deeper by overly proportionate pain. Despite that, I sincerely believe that both causes of my advancing physiognomy are indications of a life well-lived.