Punched in the gut

As I deal with the news about my mother, I find myself wanting to share it with others yet reluctant to pass on such heaviness. It seems many of us have felt it similarly. A punch in the gut. Took my breath away. Heart stopped.

That's how I felt. And I feel bad passing on that feeling. Why should I make others suffer too, and feel my pain? Everyone has their own issues to deal with; I don't want to make them carry my burden too.

And each time I pass on the news, I relive that punch in the gut as another person feels the impact of it. I get just a little bit nervous anticipating their reaction, wondering if maybe I should spare them the hardest part. If I have to tell the news in person, I find my voice becoming pinched and pipsqueaky as I watch the other person's eyes become liquid and brimming as they look upon me with a new-found sympathy which just makes my heart pound more and my voice become more choked as I make an ever more concerted effort not to tear up.

I think it also makes the news more real with each additional person I tell, as if their knowing it means that I now truly have to accept it.

Yet at the same time, I want my friends to know. I want to feel their sympathy, feel surrounded by their love. I already do and it makes me cry, but they are tears of love and appreciation and overflowing blessings amidst sorrow.

And I know that my friends would want to know. That's what friends are for anyway, isn't it? To share that punch in the gut amongst us all. To try and take a little of the pain out of that punch. And maybe after so much gut-punching, it will start to hurt just a little less.