When you have lived through the deep stuff, you recognize it in others. Its a different way that you see the world, that you process “hard”, that you formulate thoughts and verbalize questions. You have a greater capacity for pain and for the unresolved. You don’t choose it; you just walk through it.

Truly the only comfort comes from fellow survivors - those who have weathered trauma, abuse, pain, tragedy, the deep stuff. That’s why, when someone sent me Bethany Barnard’s “All My Questions” album, it hit a nerve. Beth knows.

Her song, “Tears are Smoke” gave words to the silent messengers that had been falling for months.

Tears are graves
Marking where something died
Tears are stars in the dark
Tears are stories
Connect the dots of a life
Tears are the color of my heart

The stories being wept will never be published, but I do need to stop and acknowledge them, allow them to be read by the ones who have witnessed the deaths. This matters.