Sleepless Nights

2:12 a.m. – Some nights sleep evades me as my heart and mind battle over grief and staying present in this moment. I came up with a battle plan about six months after Courtney died to work my way through nights like these and it begins with a conversation with the one who walked this same path long before me. 

Mother Mary, I know you know the tumult in my heart tonight. The pain that washes over me and brings me to my knees. I ask that you walk with me this night, hand in hand, bead for bead, prayer for prayer as the grief ebbs and flows in my heart. 

I know that death has not won but sometimes I need reminding. St Courtney, intercede for your Mama this night and bring me to the morning with peace. 

“For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often – will it be for always? – how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, “I never realized my loss till this moment”? The same leg is cut off time after time.” — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed