a home and family for grief

​The grief triggers are never surprising in retrospect but earth-shattering as they hit you like a tornado in the middle of the night in a town with no sirens. The devastation is quick and shaking, and then you are just left in the aftermath. 

A thought

A smell

A memory

A song

The daily task at hand 

It is everything and nothing, and it comes in waves like a summer storm on the all too often, visited favorite spot on the lake. The place that was bright, airy, and brought joy yesterday beings tears, confusion, angry, or exhaustion today. 

Grief is draining. 

When you think your safe it sneaks up like a thief. 

When you except it, prepare for it, wait for it, grief laughs and subtly shutters off to hide in the breeze. 

It changes, grief, like the morning light and evening dawn shifting with weather, seasons, and the all too strange tilt of the universe. It never shows up quite the same but when it saunders off you know the visitors name, you know it was there, grief never leaves without ensuring it's presence was felt. 

The challenge is accepting it's presence in your life. It is now a faithful member of the family like a newly introduced relative. Grief sits at the table with your other family members; joy, memory, history, faith, and hope. They all intermingle and there is a point when you can not imagine life without grief at every holiday, every birthday party, every photo, story, and memory. 

Grief was not there when the memory was made but it can not be separated from the reflection. 

Grief is not all bad. It guides, brings comfort, forces tears and rest, it tightens friendship and love to ensure you will keep moving forward. The the hole does not shrink, that is a lie. The pain does not decrease, that is a myth. In place, grief settles, moves about, lives, and adjusts itself to your being. 

If you forget it is there for too long it reminds you with an update unsettling knock, a whisper, or a cyclone.