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Salt in the Wound

Twice I heard this today, "it's like salt in the wound."  First when listening to NPR, a man telling a story of dealing with the horrors of war even thirty years after; how death changed him, how he knew the minute he killed the enemy his life was changed.  For years he would not discuss it, but now time had come.  He expressed how there is no peace for the injured soul, morning is salt in the wound, evening is salt in the wound, it's an eternal cycle of pain.

Next, a friend used the term when speaking about the death of her beloved daughter, how everything hurts so badly after such a loss, how sometimes people say things that are so painful to hear, it's like salt in the wound. 

This grieving is so unpredictable, so volatile, so wicked at its core.  Insidious by nature, you think you have escaped it but there it is slapping you in the face and bringing you to your knees. It doesn't take much; what most think as so common becomes a mine field of memories we've to dance around... the first time I went to Lowe's after Wyatt died I cried in the aisles, I had to sit in the aisle crying, it was so awful. The grocery store is brutal, the discount store almost impossible.

Life, we're surrounded by life and all its accoutrement, yet we live with death as our closest companion and it makes life very painful.
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