Realization hit.

The people I was leaving

So many lives I would miss

Their language

Their way of smiling and laughter

Their joy and their pain.

Pain…

Yes, it was painful.

Waves of turbulent emotion

Crashing through my mind.

No thinking

Simply feeling

As I let myself sink into the violent ocean.

Seeing each face

My friends

My family

The little ones who’d grow up without me.

I let go

Releasing myself to the hurt

For it was the pain that comes with love

The bittersweet cost of caring.

If removing the pain meant sacrificing that…

Then I would keep it.

Savour it.

Thanking the God who created

The ability for such depth of emotion.

And I submitted to its depths

Ocean depths of wrenching tears.