grief...the never ending story

The last two weeks have been stretching me and pushing against tender spots. My aunt Pat died Friday evening June 2. I spent the next week with my cousin Sue, came home for a week and Friday returned to Massillon so I would be ready to speak at Pat's Memorial service Saturday. Walking this road of fresh grief prompted the following observations this weekend:

grief is universal
but it often lies,
wanting you to believe you are the only one 

grief 
sometimes blinds us to what is right in front of us
other times it opens our eyes to see what we have been blind to

grief
sometimes is like wearing a heavy woolen coat on a hot, humid day
making breathing hard

grief
sometimes is like quicksand trying to suck you under
making you afraid to move because moving can draw you farther in

grief
sometimes you see it coming like a freight train-
it can make you freeze in your tracks or run faster than you've ever ran

grief
sometimes ambushes you
and all you can do is scramble, hoping for minimal additional wounding

grief
sometimes screams out for answers to questions that have no answers
and all you end up with is more questions

grief 
sometimes affects your brain
and your thought processes become temporarily dysfunctional

grief
sometimes it hides truth
sometimes it reveals truth

grief 
sometimes will send you into a tailspin
and all you want is for the dizziness to stop, or at least slow down

grief 
sometimes makes you numb 
or it can cause heightened, extreme sensitivity

grief 
sometimes is a distorter
making "small" things loom larger than life and "big" things can seem trivial

grief
is neither temporary nor terminal 
it is not an illness for you to "get over" 

grief
is individualized
there is no "one size fits all" healthy way to "deal with it"

grief 
is nothing to be ashamed of
but it is something our society is uncomfortable with