You are my therapy

Sometimes love is soft, warm, quiet and sweet; like a daisy.

Sometimes it roars like a momma bear; like a mama grizzly.

And sometimes, it is loud, and takes up the whole room…and looks like what we think of as grief…

This week I feel it pounding on the doors of my heart. I know I have played the distractions well, and I need to process. I have distracted myself with all sorts of fun trips, but I’ve also done some really hard things with my best friend by my side to just be there when I collapsed on the floor in tears.

I also took an amazing hike to iceberg with friends in front of me and friends behind me. I actually hiked alone and I thought of Andrea. She would have marveled in God’s beauty in that hike. She would have reveled in the solitutude. She would have loved the flowers, and waterfall. She would have loved it.

This is my week this summer, with no distractions. I have to balance carefully so I don’t spiral but I also know that I do need to take time to give grief the process it demands.

So, I wait for that window.

Funny how God works…

Balance is so key.

In a discussion I had with a friend who is so new in this child-loss path…child-loss by suicide even. She’s so new that she’s still in the counting days process. I’m new enough that I’m counting months…not years yet.

33 Months without Andrea….

It’s a fine balance.

Distraction is a good tool for me, in balance.

But, I do need to allow the time and space to let the grief trickle out….Give it the space it deserves.

I’ve seen several posts lately showing grief as love disguised, the idea that the space grief takes up doesn’t shrink, but instead, we build a new life around that grief.

These things I can relate to.

These things I know.

At the beginning, and in many ways, I’m still in the early stages, the love you feel forces your grief to be large, loud and at the center of everything you say,

everything you think,

everything you do.

At least for me.

Still, rarely is Andrea not in the center of my thoughts…dang, if I thought of Jesus like I thought of Andrea? In some ways, that is what I’m learning to do, because with every thought of her, I have to beg for strength to grapple with my new reality….

And I do.

And life goes on.

And it is good.

But, building a life around grief takes effort, and stamina, and strength…and work.

And I have to find that balance.

You see, you are my therapy.

I have allowed really good, and healthy, distraction time. I have rested. I have done some healing, I have recouped.

This is good.

I also know I have to process…It would not be healthy for me to continue distracting with no set-aside space to process. But that is a challenge. When do I process so that I don’t allow myself to spiral? Too early in the summer, and I could start summer-habits not healthy for me…So, I kept busy.

But, I know the time is now, to feel the feels, share with you my heart, and say in words that I miss her so, so much….I can’t even begin to describe. I miss knowing who she would have become. I miss watching her be a mom, I miss the grandkids she would have brought, and I miss the friendship she and I would have had….

I have been robbed.

Of something so valuable no price can be put on it, and there is no time-frame in which I will be over it. I will forever be changed.

My world will forever lack color that her laugh brought, that her song sounded…

As I said at the beginning, funny how God does know, He is watching me. My day unexpectedly got rearranged giving me the space for my therapy session with you. With a distraction in exactly one hour! Exactly what the Master Doctor ordered….

The time to process, with not too much time to camp in an unhealthy space.

So, for this moment, I let the tears fall.

I let love put on her cloak of grief, and I allow the sad to take over.

For a time.

And then I will go out in the sunshine, with purple stained hands and smile knowing Andrea would have craved the quiet solitude of huckleberry picking. Yes, she would have joined us and picked just outside of our chatter…And occasionally, I would be able to hear her humming. So, that’s what I’m going to listen for today…

And on occasion, just to scare the bears away, I’m sure she’d let loose with a strong “Let It Go” just for good measure.