So, we keep going

There options when one grieves. I'm having to make some very concious choices about how to handle all of this.

I guess some authorities have also put labels on the "stages" that most people experience, although I'm not really interested in those.

There is intense physical pain, sometimes. For instance, I have had such "squeezing" in my chest, that it makes me feel like my actual heart is really wrenching around in there, and that it may go ahead and rip itself apart.

Sometimes, my eyes and head hurt so much from crying that only darkness and sleep will calm them down.

There is, of course, anger. I haven't directed my anger much at anybody or anything. I did have some very frank discussions with God, though. I suppose I've just felt plain angry - at the absolute unfairness and wrongness of my friend having to leave her family, her great life, her other friends and me.

And there is just sad. The deepest sadness. I have sadness - almost all day long - that still makes it hard for me to breathe. The "hole" people talk about having; I feel like I truly do have a physical hole about the size of a bowling ball right through my center - center, meaning every aspect of "center."

My Dad, who lost his brother at 39 to cancer in 1983, told me that "I don't necessarily need to think about filling up the hole with something else, but rather to know that I will just get used to having the hole with me." It seems kind of like what people must go through when they lose a limb or a breast; I've heard that they keep feeling like they have that particular part, and have to be reminded that they can't use it or touch it.

These are my feelings, so far, and I still have all of them.

I am trying my best, I think, to also be happy, and to keep going. My friend certainly would be frustrated at me if I didn't do that. So, in her honor, and for the sake of my husband and daughters, for the sake of my friend's family, and I suppose for my own sake, I am trying.

I also have an amazing life. I do love it. I am grateful for it. I will not disrespect my friend, nor her incredible example of living by stopping.

So, even though my family and I have given ourselves some "breaks" from the normal, sort of busy pace we take, we keep going. My girls are visiting Grandpa's farm right now, and living, living, living! I am accepting the gracious and loving help offered by so many of my friends, and my awesome husband. I am enjoying, appreciating, reflecting and loving.

I guess that's how I love. An old friend used to compare me to "Deanna Troy" from "Star Trek, The Next Generation." She's an "empath." I guess I'm glad I'm like her, and not like "Data," the android.

Including all the pain that goes with it, "Here's to loving!"