Summer Nights Are Sort of Alright

Eight months into it, another year almost past.  
Time is a cruel mistress, not sure who said that...maybe it was Yeats.  Christmas is getting closer...

I like to keep Christmas in my heart.  Recently, I watched The Muppet's Christmas Carol .

I'm listening to the trees rustle, the cool air is wafting through this house, Agnes is sitting at my feet.  I feel "grim around the mouth" and so you know Ishmael went to the sea...I listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas movies.

Many of you know, I've been dealing with a great amount of discouragement in my life.  The irony of that statement is that I am even making it.

Here goes an interesting jaunt down a strange rabbit hole:  

Kate always told me this story of when she met Corrie Ten Boom, how large her hands were, and how Corrie gave her and the guy my Mom was with at the time a blessing on their marriage(even though they weren't engaged, but Kate didn't have the heart to tell her.)

Who is Corrie Ten Boom people will say.  She was a Dutch woman who hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  Corrie and her family were sent to various concentration camps, her sister Betsy died in one.  She wrote a book about her experience called, The Hiding Place.   
Kate had a copy of this book which I read at a very young age.  We owned the movie version of The Hiding Place also.  This past week I was thinking about Corrie Ten Boom, because I remember the part in her story where she is in the pit of death and human cruelty, and she envisions killing one of the guards.  In her book she describes how even in the worst of situations she was learning how to become a better person.  How her own heart was full of pride.  

“Oh, this was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his: to display such blatant evil one could almost believe one's own secret sin didn't matter.” 

― Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

So, tonight especially I put together a dresser. I'm ranting and raving. Trying to get this house to a point that it WILL sell.  I'm angry at everyone and everything.

  Realtors, my siblings, my mother, my father, mortgage companies, the state, the country, the world, the universe.


I'm so good at trying to be positive, hoping that everything will work out that when I keep trying and do not see any fruit to my labors, well, I get really discouraged by life. 

First thought, Don't Judge.

And I wondered what is keeping me from reaching out and asking for help?  Well, I know the answer.  I'm afraid of being judged.

Judged for whatever it is that I have or haven't done in my life, in this house, for my dying mother.  Judged for any action and choice that I've made. Trust me over the past few months many people have given me their judgement.  In various aspects of my existence.  My house is not clean, I'm never going to get a good job, I'm too emotional, I need to let go, I need to care more, I need to pray more, I need to move on with things....trust me the list is endless.  And you know those of you who've thrown those things at me.  I'm pretty sure that I've taken it.  I know you meant well, even if you don't really understand me as a person.

 Now here is the kicker.  

I am the merciless judge of myself.  Whatever this inner realm of self that says, "You aren't doing this right." etc is, I've got it in spades.  Tonight, I was just ready to give up and I felt Kate.  I say that because I know what she would've said.  She would've said, "You're almost there, you can't give up."  

So, here I am writing out into the ether of the internet to nobody in particular because I am alone with my own thoughts most of the time.  What I want to tell others is, DON'T JUDGE.

From a spiritual point of view, I've seen Christians judge other Christians and non-Christians, but I've seen others judge Christians too.  I've seen Christians judge Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists...on and on.

Well, God is teaching me that judging anyone is wrong, even through my own dire situation that I'm in at the moment.  I am not entitled to anything, I'm not even truly guaranteed anything in this life.  I mean life, liberty, pursuit of happiness??? Those are ideals that most people have no chance of actualizing.  

We can't know another's heart or actions.  I don't know why most of us are here, if we all have some higher divine purpose or if we are all just ants working at small hills that get destroyed.  I wish that I knew.  I really do wish.  

Second thought, We waste A LOT.

I keep hearing about weddings.  How much they cost.  How in New Jersey a couple could easily spend $25K on one day of festivities.  I mean if their friends are plunking it down why not?  And in my heart, I think what a waste of money!  50% of couples divorce anyway, why not feed starving children with that?! But, in my thinking I don't want to judge people, (here is that constant right?) I guess for some it's what they need to do to feel important.  I just keep thinking how that could help others.

Also waste, I live in a large house.  Why do so few people live in such large spaces???  I mean is this necessary?  I hear a lot of jabber about becoming wealthy as though having lots of money in the end is the measure of a successful and happy life.  

Well, I think money is not the measure of a successful and happy life.  I guess it's the same thing as the insecure men that think they need to be with super model type women, when really they are just average themselves.  

So I am challenging myself, how to stop wasting so much!  Wasting my time, my life, my emotions, my money...this is not easy.

Third thought, Can I encourage others, even when I am discouraged?

I agree that this is a strange thought.  But in my persistent pursuit of joy I keep thinking that there must be something I can do to help others.  I feel so helpless myself.  But maybe that's my strength. I feel closer to other people who are down on their luck.  I mean when you've hit rock bottom, you can only go up right??

This always CHEERS me up...how 'bout a little Christmas in July?  Waltz of the Snowflakes...

Hearts

Hearts are

Symbols.  Blood pumping organs.

4 chambers, blood, veins, arteries, muscle...

 They can be:
 broken, hardened, softened, won, beating, bleeding, giving, warm, cold, shallow, guarded, stolen.

I'm sure a heart can be even more.

We live in a world where to have a hard heart doesn't just mean you have artherosclerosis.

I've heard many times that having a hardened heart is a really bad thing.  I grew up hearing about how Pharoah hardened his heart against God etc.

But, what if having a hard heart isn't a bad thing?  What if it's a blessing, rather than a curse?

What if certain life experience makes it impossible for a person to be open or have a soft heart towards others anymore?

I would love to say that I don't fall into this category, but it would be a lie.  The problem is, I'm really good at faking caring about other people.

Yup, I am admitting something deep.  Hey, we all do it at times I'm sure.  People bring me problems all the time and I can say all the right things and such to try to make them feel better.  Or I appear to be listening to their issues, but the truth is over the past couple of years, I just don't care like I once did.  Don't get me wrong, there is a part of me that does care, but the stress and trauma of life has gradually made it harder for me to give a shit about anything.

Now, I'm super aware that this is a problem.  No, I'm not rebellious, angry, spiritually discontent, or a mean person.

The truth is, I'm just emotionally exhausted.  I'm too tired to care.

Some call this burnout.  I'm sure many of those close to me are aware of the way I've become, but I'm not good at being open.  But what if this is the key to survival?

So here's my question....(and these answers are going to be varied) how can a person protect their heart without going to the extreme of hardness?  IS such a thing even possible??

Can't Buy Me...Love? Happiness? Long Life?

We aren’t really supposed to talk about money.  It’s not proper or fitting or socially acceptable in some circles.  Folks like to whisper about who’s got it or who doesn’t.  At least that was what I experienced in my “church circle” of friends.  Those who were on the fringes of poverty and required assistance from the church community were viewed as being a bit of an underclass.  Heck, I experienced it firsthand at times when my Mom required financial assistance.  But, I believe that giving to others in need is paramount of this thing we label as “Christianity”. 

The news was reporting the past couple days about a woman who left her baby on a subway.  She was homeless and said that she couldn’t take care of her baby anymore.  I don’t know the whole story, but it got me thinking.  She could be me, she could be any of us. I could be homeless.

From the outside looking in, I appear to have plenty.  In fact someone once told me I was privileged.  Why was I privileged?  Because last year when my Mother died I inherited a house worth over half a million dollars.  

This doesn’t mean that I have that money in hand.  In fact, I have less than when I inherited it last year. The small amount of money she left barely paid for her funeral expenses, some utility bills and I still have outstanding health bills coming in the mail.

After taking care of a terminally ill parent for almost a year(try finding gainful employment while someone is at home dying) I accepted the first job I was offered. 

And most of my paychecks went into maintaining my  inheritance. 

I inherited mortgage payments, a high tax load, expensive oil heating, a dog and various other maintenance costs on a house.  Between these costs, the cost of gas to commute,  I barely had enough to pay any other bills. 

I was also in a deep state of grief, but I was pretending that I was OKAY.

So, I kept going, doing…striving.  I was not going to allow myself to fall into any type of depression or sadness.  I knew that I must be positive.  I focused on other people’s problems or things to distract me from feeling the real sadness.

Then my father got arrested. 

In under eight months time, both of my parents were gone.  And I do not have family who live near me.  I am by myself. 

I nearly lost my mind.  Bad thoughts crept in, thoughts such as, maybe I should just die.  Not that I would kill myself, but maybe just maybe a truck might hit me on the highway.  I only told a couple people about these thoughts.

Each day was a struggle to pull myself out of my bed and drive to a job full of banality and lack of purpose.  I would sit at a desk staring at two screens, barely able to remember my own name at times.  I would start crying and have to spend twenty minutes in a bathroom stall trying to compose myself.  It was as if I had been through an intense battle, come out on the other side feeling relieved, yet sad to have witnessed such horrific suffering.  I guess it was a type of PTSD. 

Counseling may have been an option, checking myself into a facility was another possibility. The only thing that kept me going and gave me purpose was writing.  However, the grief I felt just kept slamming me.  

I hated not being able to function.  Each day dragging myself to an office, stressful commute, I was losing my mind.

 So I quit my job.  I simply couldn’t do it anymore.  And I don’t feel guilty.  I needed time to grieve, to realize that my Mom is gone and there is nothing I can do to change that fact.  All that I can do is my best.  Of course, money is a problem.  However, I always have a way of getting money, making money when I need it.  It's kind of my special power.

Right now,  I have 3.58$ in my bank account.  I’m working a part-time job that has yet to pay me.  I’m still going.  I haven’t “bought” food in three weeks, I’m eating what I’ve got in my cupboards.  I’m not worried about the carbs, the GMO’s, the wheat, the sugar…I’m just worried that I have food to put into my body.  I won’t starve.

I calculate how much gas it will take me to get to work.  That’s what I’ve done this summer.  I haven’t gone to the beach or on a nice vacation or a hike. I am surviving, in a half a million dollar house.

My story is NOT unique.  I have a college degree that took my thirteen years to accomplish.  I am $30K in debt. How many of my peers still live in their parent’s homes because the cost of rent is astronomically?  I bet I could name four people…and they’re married.  My generation was brought up in this bubble of middle classdom, a privilege that not many will have ever again.  We were conditioned to go into debt in order to “get an education”, unless you were lucky enough to have your parents pay for part or the whole.

The sad thing is, I’m not afraid to work hard.  I’m not lazy.  I’ve had jobs since I was twelve years old.  I’ve been self-reliant.  This isn’t a complaint, its more of an understanding that life is hard.   

Six years ago without a college degree, I made almost double what I was making this past year.  Then in 2008 the work just dried up, I got laid off. 

Now, why am I writing about any of this?  I will tell you.  Because I’m tired of pretending.  I want to scream out, LOOK I’m poor and it is OKAY. 

But, what I’m saying is look around.  There are some major problems with our governmental system.  Apparently, jobs are on the rise, but what jobs.  Full-time, with decent living wage, health benefits??? No.  

And I’ve been thinking about all of this for a long while…and it hit me.  Over 600,000 people in our country are homeless . We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Tell me, how the fuck do we have people with nowhere to live???  There is this idea that the homeless are lazy people who don’t want to work.  This is not true.  Many people who are homeless have jobs, but cannot afford a place to live.  How is this possible?  In 2014, in the United States of America, we  fund all kinds of strange things, but we cannot fund a place for those Americans down on their luck.  Ask someone homeless where do they want to be in five years...probably will say ALIVE.

I’ve always hated when people ask you where you’d like to be in five years.  It makes me think of something John Lennon said when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said something like, “Can’t I just be happy?”  Which is funny because apparently those who make between $50-75K a year are the happiest so says Forbes.  

While I don’t believe in entitlement of the poor or the wealthy, I do believe that everyone should have a place to sleep, food in their bellies and happiness.  But the religious side in me says, we live in a fallen world.  There is real evil out there, but how many of us support that evil by doing nothing to stop it?  We do nothing to stop it. 

I have only 3.58$ in my bank account.  My statement denotes two things, one that I actually have a bank account, that I have a social security number, that I did have a way to put money in there…so many people on the fringes of society do not even have bank accounts.  They are not eligible for them.   In some ways not having a bank account, or credit cards, or student loans would be an amazing, freeing feeling for me. 

Kate grew up very poor.  She would tell me stories of living in housing projects, roaches, sharing bedrooms with many siblings.  A man she was in love even decided not to marry her because his parents didn’t approve of her background.  (this was a “Christian” man of course.)  She was always afraid of lack, even though she was a hardworker, with a college degree, my Mom never really thought much of herself.  I think it was because she spent so many years ashamed of where she came from.

People are so often ashamed to be poor, but I believe that those who are wealthy and do nothing to help others are the ones who should be ashamed.  And for the record, I put myself in the “wealthy” category.  I wish that I could give more.

But, I guess in some ways I am privileged.  I am privileged enough to care about other people.  While I've been told that I am too nice, I've come to realize that maybe what I've been made to think of as a flaw is actually my secret strength.  Each day is precious, every life is precious, poor or rich, white, black, brown or yellow, we all deserve to treat each other with respect.

It Is Time...

I always feel a little bit lonely on Sundays...

One year ago today I was waiting. 

BUT...but...but...I am tired of writing about grief. 

I want to write about LIFE.  

There is this constant pull in life, a joy, a sorrow, some symbiotic tandem working together, always.

The bigger picture pervades my brain most of the time.  I suppose I don't live a "conventional life".  

Growing up, I spent almost the entire Sunday at church.  I learned about theology and God and Jesus Christ.  How there was a specific "holy way" to live.  But I didn't really see it put into practice.  So, I decided to not live that way anymore.  I just want to be the way God made me, I am all light and all darkness.  Isn't this true?  All good, all bad?  Paradox? Maybe.

                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She's there somewhere in the ether of time. Floating above me. Watching over those she loves.  She's here in my heart, in the heart of those who knew and loved her.

Today I spoke to my Grandma.   We spoke of how she never knew her father, since he died when she was only twelve.  He was ill for many years while she was growing up and she never had a chance to ask him things.  Like what his favorite food was, or stories about growing up.   He passed away in May 1947 and she still grieves his loss to this day.  I understand that.

I cannot grieve anymore.  

For thirty-three years I had a mother who loved me.  A mother who watched her younger siblings have babies, and feared she would never have a child...then I came along.

A beautiful woman, who taught me to sing hymns and praises to God, read character building stories, sewed little dresses for me to wear, made me french toast and teddy bear pancakes.  And that was just when I was young.

She only wanted the best for her children. I have so many memories, ALIVE in my heart.  

Kate was not perfect.  She could be sarcastic and biting at times.  

Because we spent so many years together, she knew me so well and I knew her so well.  When she was leaving us many times all she would say was, "ask Sarah, she knows what I want."  I knew because I knew her.  She never told me what she wanted.  She just knew that I knew. How's that for a symbiotic psychotic relationship?

And as I watched the body that gave me life, wasting away some little bird-like creature...

 I knew her favorite food, her stories, her laugh, her belief, her hands, her hair, her legs...

I hold them within to be shared someday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I cry now, they're not sorrowful tears.  

Kate feared one thing.  Leaving behind her children.  She told me that she was most worried about me.  I don't want her to be.

We can only do what is right for ourselves.  I truly believe that when we learn to move on, to embrace life, even though life can be a sadistic motherfucker, we can really be where we are supposed to be.

I've got my plans.  I write them out, because I KNOW there is no prescription for true happiness.  We are all mites of insignificance at the foot of some vaster master plan.

Follow your heart, sounds trite and stupid right?  But it's true.  Do what you need to, love...hate...kick out your feet...grab life by its balls and just do what you want.  I know people  who act like their life is over.  They choose to stagnate and cannot free themselves from sorrow.

It is time for me to stop my sobbing...the Kinks say it best:

I will write about life, live and be happy.   I won't live in a box.  It is time for me to live.

Like A Butterfly...She Flies Away...

I don't eat much, and then I drink too much vodka. I throw up.

I am alone in my dead mother's house, in her bed, in her room and this sadness is too extreme. 

I am not  in my own body.   This is NOT my life.

I am disappearing.  Just a blob of raw open wounds.

Eleven months. My own insignificance in the face of all things holy.

I think...
how her body grew smaller, until it ceased to exist.
How I was not ready.
I sob.

No, I weep like I haven't allowed myself in these past few months.


I let go, no one to see, no one to hear...my grief takes over.  And I fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~

My heart has turned a corner.  It took me eleven months to allow myself to hit bottom.

The Holidays were not terrible, I smiled for Mother's Day and cried a bit on her birthday.  But now there is only one more milestone.  Her death day.

The month of June is full of weddings, anniversaries, christenings, communions, graduations...all these milestones.  

Tomorrow my niece(Beepboop, Bebe, Bee, Beeper, Beatrix) is getting baptized.

We mark time through events.  

I am tired.  Tired of being tired, of not having any answers in life.  Tired of living in a dead woman's house, of pretending that I am fine.  Pretending that I am strong and vital, that I don't need people, that I don't need the sacred marking of time.

Dying people are like butterflies.  In Auschwitz they found drawings of butterflies all over, but aren't we all just butterflies really?  We start as one thing and life, love, grief, what happens next in our cocoon?

And dying people are here to teach us something.  They are here to teach us to live.

To live as though we are the dying, because we are. 

I am raw.  I am vulnerable.  I'm accepting this.

My thoughts are on the sacredness of all things, my niece tomorrow will have a Priest baptize her into the Roman Catholic Church.   I am her sponsor/godmother, and I take that role to my heart.  I pray that I can share with her the beauty that was her Grandmother.  I hope that she will know Kate through me.  I pray that she will love the sacred things in life.  Birth, and death--are the same just reversed.    

And Beatrix, I cannot wait to see what a beautiful Butterfly you will be.

Tomorrow, in a holy place, I know my Mom will be there with us.

Songbird was played at my Mom's memorial...it's brought me healing over the past few months.

Ready, Set...

I know, I write so much sad stuff on here.

I won't apologize.  Here's why:

There is something most of you DON'T know.  

In writing this, I am opening up my shame. 

Almost three months ago, my father was arrested.  I cannot go into details, but he will be spending about two years in prison.   I have not seen or spoken to him since March.  

Eight months.  I lost a mother to cancer and a father to...himself, prison? stupidity?

Yes, I am now an orphan in many ways.  My nearest family is two hours away.

Each year on this day, I think about my life.  I stare at my hands, observe the lines, the creases, wonder where they will be next year.  Isn't life just a bunch of anticipatory acts?

We are always almost tomorrow, next year, I mean I think of the future far too often that sometimes I forget to live in the moment of this very second.

I got paid today.  Money was put into my bank account.  I got paid for something that I wrote. Sure it wasn't a lot of money, but I don't even care.

Before she died, my Mom told me that she was sad because she wouldn't see my success.  She told me that I am meant to write.  She understood it.  Even if I was a puzzle to her at times.

Writers are a strange bunch of people.  When people used to ask me what I want to do with my life, I never have been true to myself. I've always felt that I need to give an answer that makes sense to their query.  Because of my innate people pleasing drive, I haven't let myself be who I am.

Cannot remember the first story that I ever wrote.  But, I do remember being eighteen coming home after work and sitting at the computer in my old family room, the faux wooden panelling, the green of the woods coming through the windows, the way it smelled so balsamic in the afternoon sun.  I wrote my first story.  It was forty pages long.  I lost steam, I didn't know where it was going to go.  But in those moments sitting at that computer(and this is 1998 folks so you can just imagine the size of the computer.) I was so happy in the process of writing.  My mind was in another place.  I began to see the people I was writing about as real people with motivations beyond my own imagining.

I don't know what defines good stories vs. literature anymore.  I just know that when I read something and feel something, that's a good story.


Recurring dreams of giving birth happen to me all the time, I see my babies in my sleep.  These are not real babies, I know that now.  They are the gift of my imagination.  I am standing on a precipice waiting to take flight, I've just been too scared until now.

We take our pleasures where we may, I take mine in writing.  I disappear at times into my own mind, worlds I can create.  This year I learned something very important.

When writing I used to worry about what people would think about me through my writing.  Now, I just don't give a crap.  Love it? Fantastic. Hate it?  Brilliant. Think it is disgusting? Now we are getting somewhere.

Hiding isn't for me.  My writing is in a process right now, birthed from sadness and my own hopes.  Besides, even if I never get paid again...I will keep doing it.  Because like Stephen King says, "Why do you assume I have a choice?"

Tomorrow I enter my 35th year on the planet.

Orphan. Paid Author. Aunt.   I became all those in the past year...just can't help but wonder what this year will bring to my plate.

Many Faces, Many Phases

Each day I am evolving into someone, something new.

June 27 was the day that nothing would ever be the same.  And see in that moment, I knew it was all different.  Not different like most would think, but different in the way the world looks at night versus how it looks in the morning.

See  how life ebbs and flows,  we believe that we are changing things, but really we are the ones who are changing.

I am not a thinker.  I am a feeler.


I feel things.  I see a person crying, chances are I'm going to start crying too.

Since my own ordeal, I've come into contact with folks who are experiencing loss in varied ways.  I tell them, ten days or ten months, there is no limit to grief.

Here's my list of things NOT to say to a person grieving:

1. You really should go to a counselor.

Damn!  I wish that I had a dollar for each time I've heard this over the past year.  Chances are if I am going through a rough patch, deep sadness, no hope for the future, near suicidal depression, an aching longing for a person who no longer physically exists, talking to a counselor may help.  But I know that.
You know what people deep in grief really need?  A friend who doesn't make them feel as though they are just some broken toy who needs a quick psychological fix.

A grieving person, needs two things.  Validation that it is OKAY to be sad, and probably a nice hug.  Yeah hug someone in pain, it does amazing things.  NOW after doing the above things and coming alongside a person in deep grief, then saying to them maybe it would help if you went to a counselor, they will be more apt to accept that.

But let me tell you there are only two people out of the ten I know who have suggested that to me where I haven't immediately regretted even letting them know how sad I really am.  Advice like that just makes me want to isolate in order not to feel judged.

Counselors are a great tool, but they do not have a magic wand which will automatically make me un-sad.  It just doesn't work that way.

2.  It's been ....blah blah blah so long since etc. or this person I know was better in six months.

Everyone is different.  I bet that person you thought was doing great was probably just pretending because they were tired of others acting wanting them to stop grieving.
The vulnerability for those in grief is very high.  Grieving people don't WANT to feel the way they do, but loss is tricky.  There are triggers.
You see that person who has died/left in places all over.  A song.  A smell.  Certain foods.  Special days...
Grieving people have constant reminders of the one who is gone.  There is no limit to healing, certain losses will ALWAYS be there.  They don't go away.

Please don't judge those who are going through loss.  For most of us depending on the vastness of the trauma just being able to crawl out of bed and feed ourselves(sometimes I barely do that) is an act of sheer will.

Feeling sad, missing someone, trying to deal with the aftermath of a death, executing a will, selling an estate, making plans, getting rid of a dead person's clothes...these are all extremely exhausting undertakings.

Throw in many other stresses, such as money issues, and you have a perfect storm.


3. People who are grieving, are not just grieving the loss of a person.  They are grieving the future that will never be.

Here's an interesting example of how different people are.  My sister and I both lost a mother last year.   We share the same grief, but we are grieving different losses.   She grieves her son's grandmother who almost got to see him, but didn't.
I grieve knowing that when I get married someday she won't be there.
See how those are different but kind of the same?

We both grieve memories that will never happen now.

4. "I know what you're going through, I felt... when my Grandma/Great-Aunt/Cousin etc died. " Grief is not a competition.  

No. You don't know how I feel.

Please don't tell me how sad you were when your Great-Aunt Whatsherface died.  I'm sure your Great-Aunt Whatsherface was a wonderful person, and I'm sure that you were very sad, I can understand that and I will grieve with you, but I don't want a comparing of losses.

Folks trying to one-up someone's sadness, is narcissism to the extreme.  Just like I don't know what it is like to go through a divorce, lose a husband, or have a seriously ill child, unless you too have lost your mother or father, a parent, don't patronize me.

If you have lost a mother don't be afraid to tell me, we can share that together.

5. Grieving people are not downers, they're just sad.

After I had found out that my Mom's cancer had returned I was talking to someone when a "friend" came into the room and told me to stop talking about such depressing things.

That person is no longer one of my friends.

Suffering is real.  We are such complicated creatures.  So afraid to let others know if and when we are suffering, because we don't want to appear weak.  I like to say that I have a fragile strength.

If you're suffering physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are not weak.  You are human.

Watching someone die, losing anyone you love to Alzheimer's or death or moving away or anything can really take a toll on your emotions.  But don't shut down.  Allow the sadness, but don't forget the bits of joy in each day too.

How to reach out to a sad grieving friend? Acknowledge their suffering, offer them kindness, never judge their progress, and don't indulge their sadness.  The last one is tricky.  I've known folks who are truly incapable of having a positive thought, but guess what??  It isn't your job to change them!!


OKAY.

So those are just some simple observations I've made over the past year.  And
no, I still have not seen a counselor
yes, I am sad
no, not everyday
yes, I have fragile strength
no, I am not going to pretend anymore.


Hopefully, this will help anyone who has a friend or loved one experiencing loss in their life.