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My physical pain mimics my emotional pain.

I was recently diagnosed with a rotator cuff tear and inflammation in my shoulder. I was not surprised as I knew I hurt it months ago while carrying my beloved son around when he could no longer walk. I refused to see a doctor back then because I was not going to listen anyways. I wouldn't stop carrying him and I didn't have time for physio. My life was about his pain at that time.

But now strangely enough I find a parallel between this injury of love and the pain of loss now that he is gone. It hurts, a dull ache most days. At least once a day I do something that sends shooting pains through my shoulder and numbness into my fingers. Other times, I am just weak and tired. Much like my emotional pain of grief.

It's there, but you can't see it. And my should will never heal the same nor will I. My fragile limb is the physical representation of my broken heart.

In my agony of missing Xavier I said to myself how am I supposed to live when a part of me is dead?

But people do it all the time. They live when a part of them is broken. Whether its an arm, a leg, or my injured shoulder. I have found ways to cope with the  shoulder pain, to live with it but still do the things I needed and wanted to do. Of course it held me back at times, made me struggle to do ordinary daily things of life and makes sleep challenging.

I could remove my shoulder and arm and not have to live with the "dead" piece of me. But that wouldn't solve a thing. Much like grief. I can't just cut if off, (ignore it altogether) or I will never have a chance to heal. It would still leave me broken. At least with two arms I am still balanced. It just takes more practice to balance, to have my two arms work together again.

Again, like our lives now. Although I feel we are imbalanced without Xavier physically here, I can't imagine cutting that part out of my heart. I just have to find how to create balance with him in a different way. 1`q

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