Grief Revisited

Recently I have begun to wonder if my son was missing his grandfather more than usual. Dad would come up in conversation with my son in ways that I wasn't expecting. We were talking about going to a certain restaurant for Valentine's Day and my son mentioned the "next big celebration" there, and I had NO idea what he was talking about. Turned out, he was remembering how we celebrated Dad's birthday there last year. For me, that was a one time thing, but for him, apparently, it was supposed to be an annual event. At a school event, we were talking to another parent about a project the kids did in 2nd grade. When it came up, I had a fleeting thought that I had missed that project because I was home taking care of Dad. When the conversation turned to my son he said, "That was a bad day." Then I remembered that it was the day Dad died and that after the presentation at school, my husband had delivered the news.

I wasn't expecting this level of grief from my son after almost two years. I know that Dad's absence is something I am aware of every day, but the ache of it has lessened bit by bit over time. I thought I was the only one still missing him at that depth. But once I recognized the cues, I decided to address it head on. After school one day we came home, snuggled on the bed with the photo book I made after Dad died, and I asked him if he was missing Grandpa.

He dissolved into tears, throwing his arms around me. I was crushed to know he was hurting so badly.

I probably need to do a better job of talking about Dad, and talking about missing him, so my son has more regular opportunities to acknowledge his loss. I am hoping our chat helped siphon off some of the grief that he seemed to be bottling up lately. On a positive note, I think this shows the kind of person my father was and the impact he made on his grandson, considering he lived several hours away from us. I hope his impact will linger as my son gets older.

God Is a Father to the Fatherless (Psalm 68:5)

Two years ago for Thanksgiving, we drove to my home town to see my dad. He was a few months into a chemo regime that was ultimately not able to return him to health. But at the time, we didn't know how the story would end. We went to spend time with him and so I could be a part of this part of his life. I took him to his appointments so I could see where he spent his days, and so I could be a (very small) part of the care he was receiving from so many people who were driving him to appointments and sitting with him through transfusions and treatments, etc.

Last year was our first Thanksgiving without him. I thought a LOT about how different things could be from one year to the next. It wasn't even the "day" so much as we often didn't travel home or see him on actual holidays. But it was the principle. He was the only parent - the only close family - I had had since I was 19, and he was gone. I felt a lot of support from folks who remembered that it was our first holiday season without him, but I was still lonely.

This year I think I felt the emptiness as much if not more than last year. Maybe last year I was just expecting it. Maybe the other things going on in my life right before the holiday, and the fatigue of a long school year were contributing factors. This year, Thanksgiving was a reminder that we were moving into a very lonely season in the year without Dad. When the phone rang on Thanksgiving Day, before anyone even looked at the caller ID, it was obvious it wasn't going to be for me.

I don't say that to say, "Please call me so I don't feel lonely on the holidays," because, honestly, I think that would make me feel worse. But there's something about losing both of your parents that can make you feel adrift. I felt it this summer as I was anticipating the family reunion, and I felt it from Thanksgiving to New Year's last year. I imagine this year will be much of the same.

I know the ache will lessen as the years go on. I remember how bitter I was about Mother's Day when I was in my 20s - without a mother to celebrate in person, with plenty of conflicted feelings about the mother I had, and without a child of my own to shift the focus. But those feelings resolved in time. And I'm sure these will, too. But they will weigh heavy this year, for at least a few more weeks.

The Empty Self

I recently read Love Your God with All Your Mind by J. P. Moreland for a work assignment. I saved the book for last because I wasn't convinced it was going to be the least bit interesting. I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I ordered my own copy so I can read through it again, more slowly, underlining and writing in the margins, etc.

In the book I came across the concept of the "empty self" and I was fascinated (pages 88-96). The empty self is defined as "inordinately individualistic, infantile, narcissistic, passive, sensate, hurried and busy, and has lost the art of developing an interior life."

Wow.

Yeah, some of that won't make sense without the rest of the book, but let me tell you I felt like it nailed all the things I dislike about my life these days right to the wall.

Here's a bit I copied down from the book:  "The empty self has deep emotional emptiness and hunger and has devised inadequate strategies to fill that emptiness. Therefore, a frenzied pace of life emerges to keep the pain and emptiness suppressed. One must jump from one activity to the next and not be exposed to quiet for very long or the emptiness will become apparent."

Oh my gosh, that's my life. Especially my life for the last year. I have to wonder if that is part of the reason I am questioning what I did last year in school as if I've never done this teaching thing before. I threw myself 150% into the school year last August, on the heels of a season filled with hospice/dying/funeral/estate business/estate sale/saying goodbyes/etc., because I didn't want to deal any more than I had to with the pain of grief. I went crazy, trying to do every idea I came up with, planning grandiose reorganizing for summer vacation, buying books for myself and my students as if we were starting a library from scratch. It was frenetic. It was frantic. It was obsessive. It was like an out-of-body experience, like someone else was living those experiences so I don't have them to draw on this year.

I don't want to live that life, that pace any more. I don't want to be empty in that way. It's leaving me a little lost regarding the start of this school year and how it's going to look, but I have faith that things will all come together. The larger battle will be not falling back into that trap, that pace, that emptiness again.

Banishing Dread

I have had plenty of experience with dread over the last couple years. Dread when the phone rings (what's wrong now?). Dread about upcoming events (funerals and estate sales, family reunions without the family you love most, trips "home" when it isn't home anymore). Dread about what the future holds or what might happen next. 

I can remember clearly my feelings leading up to the estate sale last summer, for example. My stomach was constantly in knots. Just remembering it, my stomach clenches. I had to remind myself to breathe. I would lay in bed, thinking, "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this." I had to keep telling myself, "By Sunday it will be over. No matter how it goes, by Sunday it will be done."

And that's the thing about dread. Eventually, the thing you are dreading is going to happen and then it is going to be done and then you are going to be past it. Your dread will have little impact on the event itself. The event may be as bad as you imagine - it may be better or worse. But then it's over. Period. You are free of it. But your dread had a huge impact on your attitude and your health during the anticipation. 

I guess I'm not sure I want to give dread that much power over me anymore.

Knowing me, that will be much easier said than done. I am a future-oriented person with an excellent imagination. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios for what's coming - or what might be coming. If I let my imagination get too far ahead of me, I'll pull the covers over my head and never get out of bed in the morning.

Yes, the last two years have been hard. But I am done living in reaction to them. I'm ready to try something more proactive. I'm ready to put that imagination to work thinking about how things can go well, about new and creative ways to approach the tasks of life. I'm ready for more optimism.

I'm ready to banish dread.

Going Home Again

As I write this, I am preparing for a trip to my home town. This will post after we return. This will be my first trip back in a year. The first trip since the house sold and the estate closed. I am going back to my home town, but not to my home. The house is there, but someone else lives there. It isn't mine anymore.

I only lived in two homes as a child - an apartment when I was small and a house starting when I entered third grade. It was never a big deal to drive by the old apartment. It didn't need to be home because I had one somewhere else. This will be the first time being there without a home to return to.

This is also likely our last trip there. Unless we use it as a stopping point on our way to somewhere else or go back for some sort of reunion, there's really no need to return. No family there, just a few friends. Lots of memories, both pleasant and otherwise.

I feel like this trip is another in a series of goodbyes related to the loss of my dad. I'm pretty tired of goodbyes.

Posted with Blogsy

Handwriting

A couple weeks ago I worked on one of my usual summer cleaning/purging projects. In an effort to make space in my file cabinets, I purged some of my dad's papers that I no longer needed to keep for the estate.

I was really ripping through this huge folder of things, making great time. And then this envelope stopped me in my tracks.

There are several things about this that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go.

First of all, after my mother's death, Dad became hyper-vigilant about managing his money. He had made a lot of mistakes with money during their marriage, and he vowed not to do that ever again. So he balanced his checkbook, to the penny, every month. He told me about it on the phone regularly. He did a happy dance in his kitchen every time it came out right. He kept meticulous records, in envelopes like this.

Second, it cracked me up that he wrote, "Exactomundo." Like he was the Fonz. It was unusual by itself, but completely in character for my father. Then, he wrote, "Parfait," which is French for perfect. No one else ever saw these envelopes. They were for his own filing system. He wasn't jotting these things down to impress or amuse anyone but himself. At the reunion, people referenced things Dad would say, or said they were waiting to hear his little jokes and comments - he had a style and a "voice" that was distinctive. This envelope is a perfect example of that.

Finally, I just stopped and stared at the handwriting. That block handwriting he used because his cursive was atrocious. For a teacher, he had awful handwriting. We teased him about it all the time. So this block print was his way of being legible.

I miss seeing that handwriting.

My own handwriting is pretty bad - a hodge podge of cursive and printing that my students often can't read unless I am being really careful in my writing. But this envelope reminds me to keep writing things by hand. Some day, it might be precious to someone I love.

Dread, Survival and Perspective

For the last 18 years, my extended family on my dad's side has gotten together for a reunion. And every time, I have looked forward to seeing my aunts and uncles and reconnecting with my cousins and marveling at how much the kids have grown in the three years since the last reunion. Every time, anticipating. Except this year.

This year, the feeling was much closer to dread.

The re-connecting comes in levels - there's the big picture reunion, where 70 or so of us reconnect with one another. But at another level, it is a reunion for each family unit. Brothers and sisters who live far apart have the chance to be together again. My aunts and uncles get to enjoy having most, if not all, of their family with them for a weekend.

Last year, my family unit was forever changed. Leading up to the reunion, I felt like an island, newly separated from the mainland of the larger family. My grandparents, the folks who tie this whole group together, are gone. My parents are gone. I have no siblings. My little family of three, who walk through life together every day, was still a family of three at the reunion.

But I survived. We had a great time. Our family was gracious to us and to my cousins who lost their dad earlier this year. There was a full range of responses to our loss - from "don't mention it" to a more direct, "So, how are you and how did things work out?" There were a couple nice texts and messages and hugs from folks, saying they missed Dad. The cousins I always count on were as reliable and delightful as ever. If anything, I could have spent another week with them. We did our usual family talent show and games and choir. It was a wonderful reunion.

Being together also gave me a little perspective on the pity party I had been having for the last couple months. I knew Dad was sick and I had a few weeks to wrap my mind around the fact that I was going to lose him. My uncle's death was more sudden. I've had a little over a year to process some of my grief. Their loss is still so fresh. I know I am not alone - I am not an island.

I miss my dad like crazy. I think about him every day. But this weekend was a good reminder that I don't need to let his death define me and where I fit in my family or in the world.

Happy Birthday, Dad

  

This month I've been thinking of Dad a lot. This week we would have celebrated his birthday. I really miss him.

Teacher Appreciation Week

It's National Teacher Appreciation Week. And today, Tuesday, is the day folks are supposed to use social media to give a shout out to teachers. The best shout out I can give this year is to my father.

He taught high school social studies for over 30 years for the same school. Many of my fondest childhood memories involve him in that role

• I remember drinking soda in a bottle from the vending machines in the basement of the school's original building.
  
• I remember walking through the underground tunnel between the school and the annex building behind it.
• I remember spending teacher work days with him in his classroom.
• I remember the New Year's Eve parties my parents would have at our house. Most of the guests were teachers. I loved those people.
• I remember a summer school class he was teaching when a student came up, hugged Dad, and then picked him up off the floor. Dad laughed.
• Another time in that same summer class, all the students threw paper wads at him in the middle of class. He laughed (and they cleaned up).
• As a kid, I got to play cribbage in the teacher's lounge with Dad and other teachers.
• I loved going to the school dances with him on Friday nights when I was 5 or 6.
• He sang in a quartet with the band, choir, and orchestra directors in the annual variety show. They called themselves the Golden Oldies. They would do two songs - one snappy one like Greased Lightening and then they would bring a female student up on stage and serenade her. It was the highlight of the show every year.
• I remember that anywhere we went, he would run into current or former students (or even his "hall people" - students he knew from joking with them in the hall between classes). They would shout to him from across the mall or stop to shake his hand and tell him what they were up to.

One redeeming thing about the week between Dad's death and his funeral were the messages from his students on the funeral home website and at the visitation. So many said he was their favorite teacher - that he made learning fun. And several said they went into teaching because of Dad. I was - and continue to be - proud to be his daughter. And I count myself among those students now. In many ways, I teach now because of him.

 

Honor a teacher this week.... And maybe a few other times a year, too!

SAVOR: Cribbage

I don't remember a time when I didn't know how to play cribbage. 


I remember teacher work days when I would go to school with my dad while he kicked off or wrapped up a school year and I would play cribbage with him and the other teachers in the Teacher's Lounge. Dad even taught me to play cribbage solitaire so I could play any time.


When I was home last year, taking care of Dad while hospice was finding him a bed, we played two games one afternoon when he was pretty "with it." He needed a little help with the counting, but it was a semi-normal sort of moment and I have clung to it over and over in the last year.


Cribbage will always be a Dad thing. He taught me to play and one of the last positive memories I have of him is of the games we played that Wednesday afternoon together. Definitely something to SAVOR.

Jesus Wept

Our pastor spoke on John 11 recently - the story of the death and resurrection of Lazarus. If you regularly read my blog, you might remember that he preached on Lazarus last spring and I posted about it. This time, I was caught by a verse I have heard over and over and over but had never given much thought.


Most students know that the shortest verse of the Bible is John 11:35 - Jesus wept. Before this Sunday, though, I had never looked at it in context. Jesus knew Lazarus was sick, but chose to wait a couple days before coming. He has endured the questions from Martha and then again from Mary about his delay - "If you had been here...." He knows there is a larger plan in motion. Still, he weeps.


Why? He knew the end of the grief was moments away. He knew there would be great rejoicing and celebration soon.
Was he empathizing with Mary and Martha, and the crowd of mourners, caught up in the emotion of the moment?
Was it from exhaustion and the emotional toll of waiting and enduring the questions and grief of others?
Was it from the knowledge that the greater plan - the waiting - while necessary had brought pain to a family he loved?


In the grief of the last year, I have struggled sometimes to figure out how to relate to God - to One who had the power to change the course of last year but chose to have things play out the way they did. There were plenty of moments when I had to choose to trust that God cared and was at work, even if I wasn't sure how to feel about Him. In this two word verse, I have a different picture in my mind of how things might have been playing out in Heaven as we walked through the last year. Perhaps Jesus wept with us, knowing that this was what was going to happen, but grieving with us over the pain we were going to and had been experiencing. 

SAVOR: Time and Distance

Twenty-two years ago this week, I went home for Spring Break in order to see my mother who was very sick. At the beginning of the week, the doctors told us she had maybe 6 months. I held onto that number like a lifeline, assuming I could finish the semester before having to deal with "any of this stuff." She was gone before the week was over. 


Every year in March, I think about that week so many years ago. So much happened. So many things I thought were true on Monday evaporated by Saturday.


This year, our grief over Dad is so much more fresh. March has lost some of its usual sting, and I'm thankful for that. I am thankful for the grace brought about by time and distance. I am counting on that grace to come to us once again for the losses we suffered in 2011.

Love without Condition

Do you know you are loved without condition or limitation by God?


Our pastor asked this question a couple weeks ago at church. And my first answer was "yes." But sometimes it is a choice to believe that rather than a feeling. These days I feel loved by God because I feel His presence and His acceptance in my grief. I wouldn't say I am angry with God that Dad is gone. But I wish it weren't so. I wish the last year had a different tone, a different theme. I struggle with feeling alone. I struggle with the pain of loss and grief. I struggle some mornings to even get out of bed.


And I know God knows all of that. He does not begrudge me my pain, my experience. He stand with me as I walk this road. I choose to trust Him on a path I don't always enjoy and would not have willingly chosen. It helps that God has given me the opportunity to pour myself into something worthwhile this year. I know He is with me in the joy of my work and the pain of my grief. He has purpose in using both for His glory. I know God loves me because He stands, unchanging, in the face of my ever-changing moods, the highs and lows, the tears and laughter. He is constant. His love is constant. I am grateful for His love, for His acceptance. And today I am thankful for His constancy.

New Normal

We don't get a lot of phone calls at our house - we are an emailing/Facebooking/texting/in person sort of family. In recent years, I had taken to asking, "Yours or mine?" when the house phone rang because 95% of the time, the caller was either my father or my in-laws. I still hesitate every time the phone rings for a split second before I remember that I don't have a parent to call me any more.

When my father died, I realized I was an orphan. Granted, an adult orphan - more independent and capable than children who lose both parents and are forced to rely on extended family or social services to care for them. But there's something very lonely about recognizing that your family of origin is completely gone and you are the only one left. If you can't remember some event from your childhood, you no longer have parents who can fill in the gaps.

I imagine it wouldn't be such a stark change if I had siblings, but as an only child, I feel completely cut off and alone. I expected the holidays to be difficult, but they were okay. Thanksgiving was probably the hardest because we had been home with Dad the year before - taking him to chemo appointments, sitting with him in the infusion lab. So many comparisons from one year to the next. Christmas Day was the "easiest" because it had been so long since we had been with Dad on Christmas anyway. My birthday was a melancholy day. My family and friends were gracious, and the day was filled with fun activities and birthday wishes. But it was weird knowing there would be no call from Dad - no parent who was there on the day of my birth to acknowledge the anniversary of it. I mentioned to my family how sad it was to think of not getting a birthday phone call. My son took it to heart and disappeared with my husband's cell at one point so he could call me from another part of the house to sing me some birthday wishes. It was very sweet.

This is my new normal. No parents for Mother's Day or Father's Day. No parents to call with reports of new jobs or good report cards or birthday greetings. Some days, the new normal sucks.

Where Did I Learn That?

As 2011 was wrapping up, I spent a lot of time thinking through all the things that happened during the year. I remembered the moment when Dad pulled my family into his room at the nursing home, asking us to close the door and telling us he was ready for hospice - he was ready to die. He had had such a rough couple months, I had taken to carrying a notebook in my purse where I could keep track of phone numbers and conversations with doctors. When Dad made his announcement, I remember pulling out that notebook, breathing deeply and trying not to cry. He told me what he wanted and I took notes. I wanted to honor his request by accepting it and following through on his instructions to the letter.


One day while Dad and I were home together (hospice came to the house for several days before a bed opened for him at a facility), one of his sisters-in-law called to check on him while he was sleeping. She is a very sweet woman, and I appreciated that she and her husband were checking on Dad and I. During the conversation, though, she said they just couldn't understand why Dad was  "giving up." I felt this fierce, protective instinct kick in and told her that was not at all what this was. Dad said he was expecting that attitude from some people and I wanted to shield him from it by any means necessary.


Where did I learn that? At what point did I decide that it was more important to honor a dying man's wishes than to argue with him to keep fighting? I was not at all ready to let him go, but without consciously thinking about it, I set aside what I wanted to do what he asked. Maybe it was just the devotion of an only child - a daughter - for her father. Would I have done the same for my mother, with whom I had a more contentious relationship? Considering how quickly my father drifted away, I feel like this was one thing I absolutely got right. I feel like I honored Dad by accepting his choice about hospice and facilitating that transition for him. But I still wonder where I learned this - where I developed a philosophy of death and dying.

Wishes, Dreams and Affirmation

Through the course of our marriage, my husband and I have talked about the theory of the Five Love Languages. For the uninitiated, the five languages are physical touch, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time and receiving gifts. (You can go here and take a quiz to see what your love language might be.) In marriage, it can be helpful to know the ways you "hear" love as well as how your spouse "speaks" it.


My top love language is words of affirmation. This became clear to me again this year when I realized how much I miss talking to my father and hearing him say he believes in me or hearing his excitement when I tell him about the things I am doing. He would have loved hearing about my new job. And especially when it has come to all the things that I've needed to do for his care and his estate this year, I miss the chance to have him tell me I am doing all right with the things he left for me to do.


Hopefully by the time this posts, the sale of his house will be completed. It has been a source of considerable stress over the last 6 months. In a recent conversation with Dad's attorney, I was surprised how much I clung to the lawyer's affirmation that, despite the hassles, I was doing precisely what Dad wanted me to do (although, I think deep down the lawyer disagreed with Dad's wishes).


When I woke up Sunday morning, I could tell I had been dreaming about the house. I couldn't remember a lot of details; Dad was present in some of them and absent in others. My subconscious often deals with stress - and grief - in dreams. Anyway, just as I was coming awake, I heard a voice that seemed un-dreamlike and didn't fit in the dream I was having. And I was still asleep enough that I feel like I missed a portion of what was said. But what I heard was that I was doing all right with the tasks left for me and that my perseverance was important or appreciated (that part wasn't clear to me - mostly just the word "persevere.").


The mystical little girl inside me would love to think that was a message from my father. And I know God can do all things, so it is possible. But maybe it was only a dream. Either way, I am hanging on to it - clinging to it, desperately, with hope that the words are true - that I have honored my father this year - and that the business part of my grief is almost completed.

Lead Me to Rest (part 2)

Last week, I caught myself saying, "It's been a bad week." This wasn't at all true, though. I had one bad day last week. Just one. It was a doozy, but it was only one day. The rest of the days were pretty good, if not great. Why did I keep saying it was a bad week? 


It's easy to let the dark moments overtake the good times. It's too easy to let one bad day - or one bad moment - corrupt the days around it. I had to keep reminding myself that every time I did that, I gave that one day way too much power.


I mentioned on Tuesday that I spent a recent Saturday at a Sabbath event. The point of the day was to rest and to reconnect with ourselves and with God. And I did that, not by engaging in the wonderful experiences the planners spent weeks designing but by curling up in a chair and writing, writing, writing. It was something I easily could have done at home. But I wouldn't have. I hadn't. I needed to put the time in my schedule. I needed to set aside the time and walk away from my to do lists in order to do something my soul desperately needed.


In the course of my writing, writing, writing, I realized something about this year - this crummy, sad, grief- and stress-filled year.


It hasn't all been bad. Yes, the bad parts have been deeply disturbing. But there have been a lot of great moments in there, too. I started to think of those great moments as "Sabbath." This fall I started a job that has kept me running harder than I have for a job in a very long time. And I have loved it more than anything I have ever done in my life. This job is an emotional Sabbath from the grief of this year.


Every December I put together a huge poster of pictures from the year. I have it printed up with the year and then "A Year to Remember." I've had a hard time thinking very positively about that poster for this year. 2011 will always be the year of 3 major family deaths in 9 months. How could I possibly find 10 pictures to celebrate this year, much less 30?


But there is plenty to celebrate this year. Plenty of joys to off-set the pain. I'm trying to see those moments as gifts from the Lord. Times of rest to help me reflect, recharge and refocus before dealing with whatever comes next. I am so thankful for that gift of Sabbath.

Break

I had planned to take a step back from writing for a few days because I am hosting my first Scholastic Book Fair as the school librarian this week.

But my husband's grandmother passed away early this week, so we are dealing with that on top of the other busy-ness of life. So, I will be away from the blog for a few days, but for different reasons than I had originally planned.

This year has been so hard. In our household, we have lost my husband's two grandmothers (the only grandparents he has had for the last 20 years) and my father (the only parent I've had for 20 years - and my grandparents have been gone for 20 years, too). 

I have a friend who lost her mother a few weeks after Dad died. Her mom was a friend of mine, too.

Another friend, who is RVing around the country with his family this year, lost his father unexpectedly this summer.

Another friend lost his grandfather this summer, and his wife lost her grandmother a couple months later.


Dad's college roommate and his wife came and did Dad's service for me in June. This summer, the wife's mother passed away and a few weeks ago their oldest grandchild died after an illness.

I know death is inescapable - it is a part of the course of life. In my experience, though, at times it really bunches up. Loss after loss after loss. I often find myself looking Heavenward and asking, "Really? Now? Again? Couldn't You have waited a little longer?"


So, I'll be away for a few days, unless the urge to write is too strong.

Three Things

I follow a blogger who was posting journalling questions back in August. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting my responses to some of her questions. I'd love to hear your responses!


What are three things you would change about your life right now and why?


1) Dad would still be alive. I miss calling him and talking to him. He is missing a great chapter in my life and I would love to share it with him.


2) My husband and I would have maintained our healthier Weight Watcher's lifestyle from 5 years ago. I think we would both feel better if we had stayed with that.


3) I would have started my job a month sooner so I would have had more time to prepare and feel really ready. Right now I feel like I am a step or two - or twelve - behind when I'd like to be a step or two ahead.


So, what would you change? Post your list or a link to your list!

Grief Is Like the Ocean

Grief is like the ocean. You wade into the water - you expect this sorrow. Sometimes it barely covers your toes and other times it climbs higher and higher. You acknowledge it. You live with it. It is part of a new "normal."

Waves of grief swell. Sometimes you see the wave coming - an anniversary, a birthday, Christmas or event you thought you'd share. You watch the wave start to build and you brace yourself for it. It jostles you, but you stay standing.

Then sometimes your focus turns back to the beach. You watch other people go on about their business, oblivious to your grief. You watch them wistfully, remembering a distant time when you were a little more carefree. You focus on other aspects of your own life. You start to feel like yourself again.

As your focus is on the beach, you never see the new wave coming. It slams into you. It crashes over the top of you, taking your breath away - taking your feet out from under you. Your butt's in the sand, you're coughing and sputtering, wiping the water from your eyes and wondering where the wave came from.

That is grief.

[written 3.27.10]