21 Letters – #17 Self, reimagining after immense loss
To the woman who remains,
who still stands among the ruins of everything
she thought would bloom:
I see you,
still rooted, still reaching,
though the soil beneath you
has been upturned,
the sun obscured.
You once believed that love could be a garden,
a sanctuary where roots intertwined,
where the rain would fall and nourish you,
where the warmth would wrap you close,
a promise of growth in every season.
But love ...
it has a way of withering when you least expect it,
fading like petals left too long in the frost,
and when it left you,
it was not the quiet fading of autumn,
but a sharp, sudden winter,
leaving you alone
in a world you no longer recognize.
It was the same season
when the earth seemed to crack beneath you,
when the winds howled and the trees bent,
and in the distance,
the light that once guided you flickered and dimmed.
While the storms of love tore at you,
another shadow grew in the quiet spaces,
an ache deeper than any betrayal,
but just as silent,
a part of you slipping away
before you could catch it.
The garden you once tended,
the love you thought would shelter you,
was lost to you as the last leaves fell.
And just when you thought you could not bear it,
another loss bloomed:
a deep, quiet sorrow,
a fading, a wilting –
the kind of pain that roots itself
where the soil has already been worn thin,
where the seasons seemed too short,
too cruel.
A loss that swept through you
like a cold wind through empty branches.
You thought, perhaps,
that no more storms would come.
But they did,
the ground shaking beneath you,
the skies heavy with the weight of all that could not be undone.
In a single week,
everything you knew,
everything you dreamed for,
became a song that only the wind could carry.
You walked away from that place,
left behind the soil that once felt like home,
the place where you thought you would root for years to come,
for seasons yet to be written.
And now you stand
on earth that shifts with every step,
on ground that no longer feels steady.
You wonder how you can stand
with the world pulled from beneath you,
but you do.
You are still standing.
Still breathing.
Still moving.
You once thought love was a force outside you,
something to lean on,
to cradle you when the storms came.
Now you know,
the love you sought was never a shelter
but a reflection of the one you carry within.
It is the quiet strength of the oak
rooting down deep into the earth,
even when the winds howl.
It is the wildflower growing between the cracks,
defying the stone,
loving itself in the harshest of seasons.
You no longer wait for love to save you,
because you’ve found a deeper kind of bloom,
a love that rises from within,
that grows even in the darkest corners.
You’ve learned that love is not a garden
you must tend and wait for ... it is a fire,
an ember that you carry,
that you stoke when the night gets cold,
that you nurture in the quiet hours,
and it will burn bright,
even when the winds try to put it out.
Plans, you once thought,
were the maps that would guide you.
But now you know,
life moves in the wild dance of seasons,
in the river that flows,
not in a stillness that can be predicted.
You must bend,
flow with it,
or be swallowed whole by its current.
And through it all,
you are learning how to stand.
Not on solid ground,
but on the shifting sand,
where the ocean meets the shore
and the tides change in an instant.
You have learned to dance with the unknown,
to find rhythm in chaos.
The ground may be unsteady,
but your spirit
is unshakable.
You carry a fire,
a quiet strength that sings beneath your skin,
in the way you still breathe,
in the way you move through the world
with grace despite the weight of what you’ve lost.
You are the woman who rises
from the soil of your own suffering,
who sees, at last, the roots you have grown,
who can look at the woman you were
and understand the storms she survived.
You are learning to love her,
the one who weathered the frost,
the one who kept reaching for the light,
even when it seemed to disappear.
And now, you are learning to love the woman
who is becoming
wild and free,
rooted and yet reaching for the stars.
So, to you -
thank you.
For standing.
For breathing.
For loving the one who’s still here,
still growing,
still blooming,
even when the winds are fierce,
and the ground beneath her feet
is unsure.
With love,
The Woman Who Is Still Here