As I sit on the bench at Livvy’s special place. I just watch as people come to visit their loved ones.

The elderly man who comes everyday to visit his wife. He bends tentatively to the ground laying his flowers for the lady he cared for through the last years of her life. The woman he had loved for over 50 years still loving upon her now.

The middle aged woman who tends the grave of her parents with the kindness they shown her throughout her life. Missing her moms sweet laughter ,her fathers sage advice.

The woman who tends the grave of her son who lies across from Livvy. She is there everyday still looking over him as mothers do. Her heart aching for a son who is now out of her reach.

All of us from different places from different lives but united in grief.

Our pain is there in our eyes for the whole world to see.

As we tend the graves of the ones we miss so desperately. Our hearts beat yet each missing a piece.

Trying to move on in a life we can never fully connect too. A life that is full of shadows of the ones we grieve for.

I lay Livvy’s yellow roses and as the sweet smell reaches my nose my heart is burning. Burning with the missing.

I look at her photo, that smile that I ache for everyday.

Those eyes so full of mischief never to hold my gaze again.

I look up with tears as the old man gently taps my arm.

“It’s doesn’t get easier” he says. I cannot answer for the words are lost in my throat.

No it doesn’t get easier. Over time I guess we learn to carry our burden a little higher.Hiding the pain in a way that makes people think we are healing.

But a broken heart doesn’t heal. It just beats to a different drum.

The grief march.

A tune no one wishes to learn.

Yet one that once you know will haunt your soul.

The notes of missing

The notes of longing.

The notes of pain.

The song of loss.