One of the most powerful forces in life is love, it can make your heart soar or take you to the depths of despair and when it goes horribly wrong it can cause pain like no other. I have been blessed, for I have felt loved and loved deeply.
As I cast my memory back my first real experience of love was with my dad. He was the epitome of love, kind, soft, gentle, a quiet man, a man of few words and yet such a powerful force, for love oozed out of him, you could feel the love even though no hug was being given, no words being spoken, his eyes were full of the kind of love that wrapped you up. When my dad looked at me with his loving eyes it was like being wrapped in a duvet, or being given a hot chocolate. Sitting in that love was a place of safety, I felt safe, like sitting under the rays of a gentle sun. I was just twenty when my dad died, I felt robbed, cheated, for I never got to know him, the man that he was, the life that he had, the stories to be told were left unsaid. It’s like finding a book with a beautiful cover, excitement filling you as you look at the gold leaf words that cast a soft warm glow filling your eyes and bringing such delight, fingers trembling as you feel the texture and weight of the book, anticipation fills you as you lift that beautiful cover only to find the pages inside are blank! The introductory is there, no doubt in my mind of the importance of that, my belief being that all that is good in me started with that introduction, my dad set the bar of love and kindness and I will be forever in his debt for his teaching. The heart never really recovers from the loss of that kind of love, the wound too deep, the scar too big. The darkness of grief has struck and life will never quite be the same.
Rachel’s blog 