“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 31:18

Journal – Sometime in mid to late August after losing my mom:

Grief is a funny thing. People deal with it in myriad ways. I suppose there is no right or wrong way. Right now my grief is new.  I take it out every now and then and look at it much like I would a shiny trinket or bauble that someone has given me that I don’t know quite what to do with yet.  I’m still figuring out how to process grief.

It’s not that I haven’t experienced grief before – I have, but you see, I’ve lost my mother and it’s a whole different wave of feeling.  I don’t know how to live with it yet. And, it’s too soon to share it with others.

When I wrote those words it was after a rough couple of weeks, one in hospice and one preparing for burial.  I was still surrounded by people.  But then everyone went home.  I stayed with my Dad for a while and it was just the two of us left in the house.  I remember the Saturday that My husband, My sister and her friends left; the house felt so lonely.  The fact that Mom was no longer there was palpable and I could hardly stand it.

My Dad felt it too and so we did what we knew to do.  We took dishes back to people who had dropped off food and then we stopped by the cemetery. Each day after that for the first week we kept busy running errands and taking care of business.  In the doing, we were able to process slowly.

At night I’d go up to my room and read or catch up on social media because it hurt too much to think. I kept telling God that I knew he was with me and that he understood, I just didn’t understand yet. I had too many questions and too much hurt to let the floodgates open – I didn’t dare, but I knew that it would come eventually.

Grace for the journey,

Teresa

Come back tomorrow for more of the journey?  Just a reminder that I usually post later in the day. Clicking on the ladybug graphic will take you to the first page in this series with links to the daily posts. Thanks for reading!