On life and loss.

Its so strange, losing people you love. There is an initial grieving period, of course. Everybody is full of hugs and sympathy for your loss, for your shared losses. Then you go home and you start your new life, and eventually things are okay. Life goes on, and you get so busy the ache isn't really on the front burner anymore. Months go by and you laugh again, and that thats the new normal. Every here and there, though, you will be standing in the middle of a grocery store and you smell them. So strongly that you would swear they were right beside you. You see a box of tea at TJ Maxx that they would love and you pick it up because you can picture exactly how their face would light up if you mailed them a fun care package. You remember the laugh lines of their face, the warm fortress of their arms when you are having a less than fabulous day. And there you are there again, in the profound absence of her. Of Him. You are supposed to remember that they are in heaven and full of joy that they are no longer bound to this poisonous world. You are supposed to rejoice for them, you're supposed to hold them in your hearts and let the warm fuzzies wash over you. Let me tell you, sometimes its okay to be sad. Sometimes it is absolutely acceptable to miss somebody so much you can't get out of bed. Not that life doesn't go on. Reaching for the past will only bring disappointment. C.S. Lewis said it best,"It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter." Thats where I am today.