What Has Changed, or The Evolution of Being, part VIII

What followed in the next few weeks was many days of grieving. Learning how to grieve with each other and the grief of our children.

We did have the birthday party for our youngest. It was severely pared down - only immediate family came. And even that caused a fight between my husband and I. That much responsibility immediately after a difficult loss caused us both to feel overwhelmed and alone.

The week after we lost Thomas, I visited Robin twice. Once with my husband because I was concerned he wouldn't be processing his emotions appropriately. He was. And once alone so I could be sure I was processing my emotions appropriately. I was.

And then I shut out the world. For two and a half weeks, I hid from my family and friends. I hid from reality, from the future, from decisions, from God.

Oh, after the first week, I did the things I HAD to do. I carted the kids back and forth to school, did some grocery shopping, did a little bit of laundry. But I spent 80% of my time in my bed hiding out.

My Kindle Fire was my new best friend. I devoured books. Every book I could download for free from Amazon was fair game. I read EVERYTHING. Mystery, Romance, Sci-fi, Self-Help, Religion, History...

I kept going to see Robin, every week like clockwork. She kept encouraging me and giving me gentle, little pushes to move on, move forward, move up. I had some moments where I thought, “This is done. I’m okay now”. But I wasn't.

You see, grief has its own timing. Grief has its own path that you must detour to at times during your life and that road is as long as you need it to be. There is no way off it except to keep moving forward. Sometimes it is very dark and the trees and shrubs that line it seem to reach out and grab you. Sometimes it is wide open and you can see the end of it looking very near. But
you have to travel it.

After nearly four weeks, I was finally able to step back on my road. My grief path converged with my life path and I was ready to get to living again.

What triggered it was the biggest fight I've ever had with a friend in my entire life.