A Slow Fade ....

.... is not what happens the day your soul mate dies.

There's nothing slow about the slamming shut of the door of your life.

Your life as you knew it.

Your "before" life.

Your future as you dreamed it.

The door slams shut.

All light is snuffed out.

Literally.

You are thrust into a very, very dark, very cold place.

No .... not slow at all.

But ..... then begins the slow fade.

So slow that it cannot be seen.

So slow that you often believe you will be in that dark, cold place forever.

So slow that the only way to tell that it started .... is to look behind you.

The inky blackness ever-so-slowly fades to a grey color.

And one day you find that you can see your hand in front of your face.

You find that you can take a step.

Only one.

You, of course, may go three steps back, but one step forward is something.

You move one step at a time.

Into the grey.

You still cannot see very far in front of you.

There is no hint of a future and what it may hold.

That is unthinkable.

But the grey slowly fades into brown.

One step at a time.

And maybe only two steps back.

It's a slow fade.

This cold, inky blackness.

But it does fade.

The browns fade into blues.

And what once appeared to be a cold and final sunset .....

.... now starts to look like a warm sunrise.

Sometimes it difficult to tell the difference.

Until you look behind you.

And see how far you've come.