Stories Collected While Living in France
Found this antique medal in the bottom of a box.
It seemed to be longing without end.
Who did it belong to? What was the sadness that she endured ?
Was she hoping yet not believing?
Did the ache go away?
Or did it stay and become her constant companion?
Why?
and no answer came.
Looking into her hands and whispering words like a healing balm for her pain.
Have you ever felt like this?
How about if I make up a story for you and I’ll email it by the end of the day 🙂
My town is flooded out, the kids have no school, so I’ll need something to keep me occupied 🙂
Tongue in Cheek responds:
Yes! Great idea! Add it here…
Maybe once or twice.When your heart burns so much that all the tears your eyes can produce cannot dull the pain.
C’est triste! Unimaginable sorrow.
Oh yes my heart has known both great joy but also some sadness, which is true for us all!
Love your photograph and words which always deeply touch my soul.
You were meant to write a book my dear!
Of this I am clear!
Love Jeanne
We each have our own chosen special gifts presented to us and writing and reaching people is a great gift you are blessed with!
Love you
Jeanne
X0X0
I have definitely felt this way. Our suffering usually gets tucked away, put to the bottom of the box, so to speak, so that we can move on and transcend. Beautiful pendant.
It’s the curve of her back that I feel most and the way her stomach tucks in too.And oh yes have I ached and found myself in this physical and familar position. I’m glad you found her and let her come out to grieve.
I’ve felt this way a few times in my life. The kind of sorrow that sits like a weight in your mouth you can neither spit out nor swallow. I think the most helpful thing to do is to feel the ache fully… take it in and look it straight in the eye, even befriending it. I love the photo.
what a beautiful piece of miniature art you found! and what good questions. i saw a man sitting in that pose yesterday on what to me was a joyful sunny day. my heart ached for this lonely despirited soul.
i wonder, does the medal say anything on the back?
can’t help being curious…
So good to be able to catch up and be back on-line again!!!:) I can see that I have much catching up to do. I missed your site. It is good to be back. Have a wonderful day. Now… its back to work for me.:)
Somehow it seems perfect that it now is in your hands, the perfect balm for a sorrowfull heart – one who can bring the sun out again…
Here’s the story, morning glory 🙂
The handsome man caught her eye as her eyes caught his. The connection was immediate. They could only imagine what it would be like to be with each other as they both belonged to others.
Tentatively, they would exchange glances at the garden parties she gave. He would make small talk with her commenting on the beauty of her flowers and of her roses. As her heart beat rhythmically to the sound of his voice, she would respond with wit and humor hoping to charm him.
He was certainly charmed and in the early morning before she woke, he would leave notes in the stone garden wall as he knew she spent many an hour tending to her tender roses. She would read them and respond with care. She didn’t quite know his intentions, but soon he made clear what they were in a note that she would hold close to the heart that ached for him.
She responded: Come to my garden. I want my roses to see you.
He never came. For whatever reason, there was never another note in her stone garden wall.
And so she sat amongst her flowers and roses, and wept.
Maybe it’s just the tinge of mother’s day hoopla left behind, but I see her downcast soul and can only believe that she is a mother in mourning. She has suffered some loss, whether through death or disappointment, and I imagine that it crowded her shoulders for the remainder of her days…..
With loss comes sorrow. We have all or will experience this. It is a lesson in life.
This is a hard concept to wrap one’s mind around, but there is extreme beauty of the most profound nature in the experience of soul felt pain. Never does one become more open, vulnerable and receptive to love than when they’e been through the dark night of the soul.
Boy howdy. Yes ma’am. Most of my childhood and younger years were spent in this pose, with these feelings. So much sadness. I think of that little girl and young woman, and it is like another person. Thanks to grace. My heart is healed, for the most part. My faith was made strong.
🙂
This is so beautiful. I see sadness there but I also see hope… the rose and other flowers are so lovely – evidence of beauty and hope. I really love this. I can identify with it. I have ached and sometimes I still do but, I have hope.
I wear that medal of sorrow occasionally. On the dark days with a problem child or the dismal days with a sick child, some darker than others; some where that song of hope is too faint to make out – but it is still there – still hope calls to me and I fight back with an inner shout, “I will not give up”. And on the horizon is the rising sun.
I felt this…exactly this..When my husband was diagnosed with cancer. And now, as we travel through our first year of remission, this ache isn’t as sharp, but always there. The constant companion of it, in the back of my mind. I’m hoping to banish it and live with less fear.
When I see something like this, because I cannot embrace the person, cannot comprehend the ache, cannot understand the toil, I often carry it around in my heart for days, and then every time I see the piece, I feel it again, and say, “Yes. I know you.”
This is so timely for me! I was just thinking on the way back from my visit to surgeon, that the mind (the heart) is unlike any other part of the body. It can heal. If you tell it to. If you give it time to listen.
I hope time and effort eased her ache. Such a beautiful amulet.
That is sadness. An ache I am feeling today. Identifying with my own sorrow.
Her young beloved husband was wrenched away from her suddenly and horribly, dead at 25, and with him her present and her future. It took her years of mourning, sorrow and heartache, but she was strong. Eventually she put the medal away, but somewhere in the corner of her soul, she always remembers.
Yes. I am very sad right now. I am going to lose my father and I am not ready. I don’t think we are ever ready.
oh my what a beautiful artifact and what a story it could tell! This is awesome; thanks for sharing. You must write something about it in the form of poetry or perhaps a story.
sage
I found your blog today. And love it. Have bookmarked it, and will come back.
Maybe her husband wearing those red pants again.
Are you going to kick me off your blog for being irreverent?
Reading all the comments saddened me as much as viewing the photo……good to be home again!
So very beautiful and so very sad…Yes…I have felt pain like this before…
she was sad for a moment, her hands reminded her that she could do something good for others in greater need. she stopped her aching and found solace in helping others.
our town is flooded too. we are high and dry for now, so i feel lucky.
i have felt the sadness and despair as this woman who is rendered in this brooch…
…being present when my sister and husband had to make the excruitatingly painful decision to let their little angel sinead go after a massive aneurysm wiped out her brain…born 26 weeks prematurely and lived in the nicu for 49 days…
& then having to witness a tiny box go beneath the earth…
…the traumatic move from our beloved home to the midwest…where life as we knew it was abruptly & rudely halted…
…finding a beloved pet in such immense pain and distress…discovering an enlarged heart and having to make the difficult decision to put him down so that he would no longer suffer…
…hearing the pain and fear in my sister’s voice as she told me that she had cancer and could no longer bear children…
yes, i have been there…these were the times i felt like that woman.
I like that – “In the impossible there is always hope”.
the human condition …deep sorrow…how I wish it would not be part of my life…luckily extreme joy has often been a gift given…what a beautiful balance….
I feel a bit like that right now 🙁 Bonjour Corey,
I have NO computer as originally promised…so I am in the only Cyber Café left in Paris, in Montparnasse..no phone aussi..Mais je suis une carte de telephone..I will return to Montparnasse many times I think..bonne journée..going to see if email is working tootle loo 🙂
I most certainly have also felt like this in my life. This image is very touching. But there is also a huge healing power that tears have! Sometimes I really need a good cry although it might be hard to distinguish the particular reasons to my sadness. Then afterwards I feel so much better and lighter. Sometimes life just overwhelmes me, I guess.
Beautiful post, Corey, as always!
We all have moments like that, isnt it …
The medal is lovely!
So sad! I wonder what the story is?
the ache does go away,but it will return to let her know she is alive.
How is it that you can capture an idea perfectly in so few words? Not fair! 😛
Beautiful as always.
Yes I have felt like this. She has lost her child.
The tenderness in the comments, the sadness we all seem to know, and have held, and have come to terms with…that which is dark has given birth to light, and yet the darkness is a song we hear and cannot always sing. I pray happiness be yours, and the burden of sorrow only a soft lullaby.
Thank you for commenting on such a “sad post” as my Frenchhusband called it.
I meant to comment on this earlier, Corey, but it was much too powerful. I had to let it linger in silence for a bit. This medallion is such a strong representation of the epic existential struggle, but on such a beatifully ordinary level. Thank you very, very much for this post!!!!
What haunting sorrow. I have imagined this sorrow, after a lighthanded brush of tragedy, something from which I was left unscarred but fiercely clinging to my children.
I have, ofcourse, felt this way at the thought of losing my children, as well.
This “Lady of Sorrow” is Our Lady of LaSallette, France. This is a Roman Catholic Medal. This is a famous apparition of the Virgin Mary and her message to a young girl is relevant especially today.
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