Tonight, Charlie has been in my thoughts, she is most of the time. But some moments the grief hits harder and I'm transported back to the days around her passing.
A couple of days after we gave Charlie her wings I had to go back to work. One of my colleagues walked in, gave me a hug and said that I did a brave thing...
I've thought about this a few times and tonight I'm pondering the thought that although letting go was brave, opening myself up to love in the first place was also brave.
Which leads me to think that we often don't realise how brave we all truly are. So many things we do in life are brave. It's the moment that you step outside of your comfort zone and do something that has some level of risk attached. When the heart is involved, grief is always the risk or the inevitable end point. The two are inextricably linked.
There is no measure of brave as much as there is no real measure of a lot of things that are unique to an individual based on their own life experience. Which leads me back to my earlier thought that we often don't realise how brave we are. And if we could recognise our own bravery, we could be brave again.
A couple of years ago I had to make some tough decisions that had the potential to significantly affect my life as I knew it. At the end when I looked back, I realised that I could actually do hard things. It's easy to forget that sometimes but it appears that Charlie is giving me a gentle reminder of that tonight.
Charlie taught me a lot in her 16 years, and it appears she still is.
Lib x
