Grief Rule Book

I have spent many hours over the past four days thinking about the path my life has taken but how I got to this point. I don't know what I've done or even how I managed to take steps to get here yet her I am. Rhonda, my co-worker and friend discussed being on auto pilot today. I don't know how I got home on Friday afternoon but I made it. I have those same feelings all those months ago. I don't know how I made it. I don't know what was said at the Memorial Service. I know I smiled and cried. I know Betsy was a strength looking down on me from the pulpit. I sat and watched Scott's casket with our photo sitting on top. It wasn't moving but I kept thinking we should be standing there holding hands speaking our vows this isn't real. It was and I didn't get a say in the matter. He was ripped from my life like a tornado. I know I'm not the only one. I remember looking at our girls holding hands and in my own sorrow thinking how can I protect them from this pain. I couldn't but I still try.

I was telling Rhonda the one thing I remember doing that frustrated others was driving. It was the one place I felt I had control. If I rode with anyone else I would launch into full on panic mode but driving made me calm when the world was twisted and dark. My life is still bits and pieces sometimes. I have huge chunks that just aren't there but I know that is okay. The last four days pieces have floated back. The times of others comforting me and holding my hand. What they said to me that made me take each step. I know through it all I was searching for an instruction manual, or some type of guidance to the feelings I was having. I wanted answers. I wanted rules. I wanted to know that it was okay that I wanted to scream at the next person who said, "I sorry for your loss. Scott was a wonderful man!" I just wanted to yell "yes I know he was a wonderful man why else would I have fallen in love with him?" I didn't do that I plastered a smile onto my face and cried many tears.

I have survived my own personal hell with lots of prayers and love of friends and family. I know I still have battles. Today in our conversation Rhonda and I talked about how so many people have the same stories after the devastating loss of someone you love. The same words you hate. The general platitudes that are part of society because people just don't what to say but you smile or kindly thank the other and move to the next. Then a some point you need a break a moment of silence for yourself. I took my moments by sitting in the church alone after all was done and the others were eating. I wasn't left alone. I knew they were watching me through the glass but I needed the silence. I needed to find Scott. He's still here. He will never leave. He is my heart and sometimes still playing tricks with the plumbing. It happened tonight with one of the ladies at our summer Bunco night. They looked at me like I was nuts but my dear friend Monica just nodded her head. I believe in God's power of light and love. He is not vengeful. He wants us to love and be loved. To me that means there will be a place and time where I get my wish but for now I am comforted with the knowledge that there are things in this world that we don't understand but that wall let's us continue to be loved.

I don't think I will ever remember it all. I will take the memories of being loved and held up even when I wanted to crumble. I want to pass along the things that were given to me. I want someone else to know it is okay to feel like you want to shout from the rooftop to "stop saying I'm sorry!" It will be okay to learn to live forward at your own pace. There are no rules even when you want them. Just know that God will continue to surround you with light and love on each day of your journey. Our journeys will have common threads and that becomes the fabric that becomes our bond. Once you have experienced a loss you join the club, it's not an option and someday you will help another live forward in their own rule book.