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 undigestible 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.
Your words hold so much truth and tenderness. Grief changes the face because it changes the heart, and the body simply follows. The lines that are deepening now are shaped by love just as much as loss, and I hear that in the way you speak about Kara. What a testament to a life that has known both joy and ache in equal measure.
I’m so sorry you are moving through this, and at the same time I am moved by the way you are witnessing yourself with honesty. Nothing about what you shared reads as a life diminished. It reads like a life marked by devotion, by presence, by the kind of love that leaves an imprint.
I hear your voice so loud and clear when I read this so quietly to myself. I know those lines. I’ve seen those lines, but not in you my friend. I see them in my own reflection. As always, your writing heals me as much as the nature around us. For who ever just commented and brought it back on the algorithm l, I thank you.