Maybe I am as big as my shadow

(Pre-script: Today would have been the 35th birthday of my baby sister.)

Shadows give you a visual cue as to where you are standing.  

Proof that you have feet on the ground, presence in your own life.  

 Maybe we are as big as our shadows.

We are connected in our shared unique histories of losses and griefs.  

Have you ever thought that the things that broke you, tore you open, ripped your heart down the middle, left open spaces where something grew between those cracks, and it wasn't just weeds and flowers but your whole you was expanded, and maybe we really are just as big as our shadow, on the side not facing the hot hot sun in the very middle of the longest brightest day.

Grief also looks like curiosity.

What did I miss, 

what would she look like

what would she 

who would she

how would she 

where would she go

to the grocery store for (Milk? Eggs?  Fish?  Unless she is allergic to all of those things?)

I can fill the blanks in however I want 

but all of my answers are just shadows of a silhouette I created in my mind and it grew

much larger than the tiny baby body of all that she actually ever was on this earth.

Shadows are dark and contain no detail,

just an outline or how large a person might become

if that person had become.

This type of curiosity sometimes feels like Heaven can't come fast enough

except that there are the people here who need me

to stay awake, and to fight, and to grow and to learn, and to learn to live.

Each day, I learn to live with the curiosity. 

Each day it makes space and expands in my chest so that 

I think I really am as large and as deep my shadow.