Walking Through the Valley

Utter helplessness.  Utter hopelessness. Does the former more accurately reflect the state of my mind than the latter? Are both accurate? Neither? No question about the "utter" part, unless "Utterly" fits more aptly.  No, I'm not playing word games, nor am I minimizing my quest.  The angst from which this word-chase  derives may be traced to my wrestling with something so senseless.  

It's not aimless rambling. either. Its genesis began with the death of Courtney, the younger of my two daughters.  How I responded to it, or didn't. The quagmire of emotions that either hunted or haunts me.  Yes, I felt helpless, without hope, bereft.  Death devours sensibility, sensitivity,  and stability, among a trillion other losses. In fact, I had learned life, or learned to emulate a pretty average life.  Which was alright with me.  

Let me live out my threescore-and-ten years, I resolved, "or even by reason of strength eighty." By the time Courtney died, I had lived long enough to understand "yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." So you see, for a Mom whose daughter had died with no warning, there could be nothing more portentous or grievous a task than to accurately define the plethora of stuff I tried to deal with.  

To no avail, actually.  Sad? Does that word scratch the itch that cannot be reached? An ineffable sadness that begins in the heart and oozes detritus, poisoning every place it touches. Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wondered: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? or fester like  sore---and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over---like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.  Or does it explode?

I. Don't. Know.

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