Finding Joy...

A friend posted this picture today.  I had seen it before, I think I may have even posted it before with a different visual, but this day it hit me afresh.  
You see, it had followed a post that reminded me that 'on this day' 7 years ago, we sold our house in Kyrgyzstan.  It was the end of  what we had thought was our life's calling.  The end of our dreams and hopes and the closing of a chapter which was so painful to close.
  
Any transition is hard, unplanned transition is even harder.  During this time, there are many going through unplanned transition.  Some small ones - having to teach our own children (!), others bigger - loss of jobs and finances and others still,  the biggest that can be faced - watching loved ones go from death to life. Loss and grief are hard at any level.  Some we can navigate, compartmentalise and work our way through, others blind side us when we least expect it.  We get over the initial shock, work through the grief cycle and think we are through the other side, creating a new normal, and suddenly a smell, a sight, a sound takes us back to a moment we thought we had moved through.  

Seven years on and I thought I was through it!  I was surprised by the wave of emotion that swept over me this morning.  The friends I miss, the sounds of the bazaar, the light dappled through the leaves of the walnut tree in the garden.  Hope is rising again, things are moving forward, life has purpose.  The illness that brought us back  is still present - a constant reminder and burden to carry on a daily basis, but the raw pain is gone.  Instead I remember with gratitude the time we had in Central Asia, the people we met and worked with, the friendships that still remain, the lives that were changed.  Would I work overseas again?  In a heartbeat.  But part of the moving forward, part of the letting go of the past and grabbing hold of the future is grabbing the future that is here and now.  So I will grab that, and find joy in this future, dig for it if I have to.  
Letting go of the past is a choice, sometimes its a hard choice, and sometimes it takes years to make that choice.  And for those of you that are only just experiencing loss during this time; don't hurry through that journey, there is learning to be done there, in the rawness, in the emotion and in the grief.  But when the time is right, make that choice, let go and grab the future.