Blood and snow

It's been a year now since I happened across the mangled body of my dog on the road in front of my former abode. A year since blood stained snow proved to me that despite our best efforts, we cannot protect those we love the most. A year since one of my greatest fears had been realized. A year since most of everything that I knew and had grown familiar with changed irrevocably. A year since I promised myself that I'd be better and stronger and more resolute than the greatest of challenges.

It's funny how I thought this year would be better than the last. How I believed so wholeheartedly that come 2009, everything would be a whole lot better.

The potential was there, in so many ways-friendships and opportunities, a burgeoning grassroots community coming to be around kids and rockstars and moments, the seemingly endless days of togetherness, the looking into the hope, the possibility of knowing and being known, the realization of a space in which the marginalized of the community could find a home, the belief that dreams could come true.

But I am seeing blood and snow again, I am driving upon a death scene similar to that of one year ago, where all the things I tried to nuture and develop and keep safe are lying in a mangled heap of steaming guts and blood. Split apart by the inevitable reality of that which I could not control, that which I could not be there for, that which I could not do. That which I could not be.

I know that at some time or another we all go through these times where crimson red splashes against bright white and horrfies us. I know we all have to pick up a mess sometime or another. I know that sometimes we all have the lifeblood of of our love streaming down through our fingers.

Sometimes, though I just wish it were different, that those experiences wouldn't have to be...

This afternoon, I stopped by the river, to think, to believe, to collect myself.

I know I am not giving up on my hope that this year could be better than the next, I can't ever give up on that.

But right now, I can't shake that image of blood on snow, and the look on her face when I said "I can't", or the look on her face when she said "I can't"

I see the red on the white, and I am praying for the melt.