Grief Journey

I have noticed something lately: I no longer feel like I can hardly breathe. For a while I felt that way. Now I just feel very alone sometimes, as if I could scream and nobody would even hear me. It's like I'm all alone sometimes but it oddly feels better than the "I can't breathe, I want out of here and I don't know where to go" feeling that I had before.

Your wedding anniversary was yesterday. I've been married longer than you ever will be. That makes me sad.

The book "A Grief Observed" has been very helpful to me in reassuring my feelings and the pain and joyful memories. I will recommend it to anybody who is grieving.

A Grief Observed

What can I say? Grandpa died a few weeks ago. I wish you were here so we could talk about it, but you knew it before I did even though I was right in another room in the house when he died. I fell like I am doing much better than I was. I just feel deep sorrow and grief now. I am still being comforted by the Holy Spirit. I still hear from God. The day grandpa died, after I got in my car to drive back to where I was staying, the chorus of a song came on and it was God speaking to me. The chorus sang "This is where the healing begins". It was an emotional day for me and I had grief from both deaths mixed together and impossible to untangle.

Grandpa's funeral was wonderful and sad all together. I got really sad because it was so difficult to separate the two funerals less than two months apart and your death still shocks me sometimes.

You would have loved Grandpa's funeral, especially the military one since you loved being a military wife. I took a video of his military honors funeral. It was moving.

The other day I was at the grocery store and saw a woman talking on her cell phone. I almost began to cry right there in the grocery store because I wished I could just call you up like that, like I used to.

How can an introvert like me find a friend like you again? I pray that God will show me a friend.

I was cleaning out my car tonight and I found some items from our abrupt trip to meet your kids the day of the crash. I wrote over the letters to the city at least three times. I can see that the writing was very shaky. I could barely write it. I wrote "ER" at least twice, one on top of the other.

I haven't really wanted to clean out my car yet and be reminded of the trip but today it had to be done. It can't stay that way forever.

Grief

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of curse it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.” C.S. Lewis

Holy Spirit, Comfort Us

John 14:26-27 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Go Ahead

Today I'm telling myself that it's OK to miss you a lot. I don't need people telling me how to feel. It's not that anybody is telling me that, but I have fielded just a few insensitive comments that I should forgive because they still sting.

I am going to go ahead and miss you today. I miss getting to talk with you. There is nobody who can take your place. A best friend sister is a once in a lifetime thing that we had for a little over a decade. I don't have any other sister or best friend. This just hurts sometimes. I try not to wallow in self-pity since I know that other people have it much worse, and it could have been worse than it is. Some days are just more difficult than others.

I want to fill you in on the latest updates but they're only important here where life goes on. Some days it's as if you just disappeared. I am trying my best to reach out and build relationships with people because that's what the future is now. Sometimes I think I'm still in shock at the reality of it. I still imagine what it would have been like if you had made it all the way to my house. I just want you here and I don't think that's wrong because I'm human and God allows us to grieve and cry. He made us with emotions and feelings.

All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well to have lost one of the two people closest to me in this world. That's half of the earth to an introvert like myself. I can only build deep relationships and a large quantity of shallow relationships does not work for me at all. I'm praying that God will fill this chasm somehow. I struggle with feeling alone in shallow friendships. Some days they help me get by but I am at a loss in how to deepen them. I pray that God will enable me to do that.

Sweet silence

Here I am all alone in the sweet silence. Lord, gird me with gladness that comes from you, a gladness that I can't understand. I'm weary and there is still work to be done, still many bills to be paid.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.