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He bolted through the door. Startled, I managed to do a half turn before he was already on me. He dropped to his knees, grabbing me around my waist, hanging on as if for dear life. He let out a wail I never heard before. Is it the animal in us that knows grief more than anything else? I watched on, horrified. Through his crying I could barely make out the words he was stammering. "He's dead". Those words rose through his tears, growing bigger, staring me daringly in my face. How was I going to react? What was I going to do about it? What would I say? The whole room suddenly felt like a casket. I couldn't breathe. Running came to mind, but I just stood there. Unable to move. Literally and figuratively. The grip he had on my waist was nothing compared to the grip those words took on me. Out of nowhere his raw grief ripped the floor from under my feet, opening an abyss of infinity. Does it ever matter that death announces itself? His diagnosis was terminal. We all knew that, once the correct tests were administered to find out why he had fallen so ill so suddenly. He went from a giant of a man to looking like his own ghost in a matter of weeks. It was heartwrenching to watch him. His family seemed to take it in stride. Was it the false hope in the medical care he received? Was it the trust in God that made it appear as if they were unfazed by his death sentence? I couldn't tell. In the end, it didn't matter. We are all living out our own death sentence the moment we are born. It simply doesn't announce itself in such grandeur most of the time. We were locked in that embrace for I don't know how long. I don't recall saying anything. Our emotions spoke for themselves. He finally got up off his knees. He wiped his face clean with his sleeves. He was almost like a boy who gathered himself back together after having been devastated by something that he would consider minor in later years, despite it marking him for life. He held my hand briefly. I felt tremendously small, now that my unleashed emotions, tail tucked, returned back inside me. Inside that treasured and most guarded spot that holds them so well. The enormosity of what we hold inside is overwhelming, and maybe the universe would run out of space if we unleashed all of it all the time. Or maybe, just maybe, if we didn't try so hard holding in what wants to be shared, the universe would breathe just a little easier. ~•~ a beautiful milieu https://youtu.be/hj0TG-bwUYk Image Barb Andersson https://www.instagram.com/dark_image_design/