Grief Lingers

13 years ago today, cancer took my mom from me. That morning I woke up, as near as I can tell about the same time she passed, and I just knew she had gone.

While I am a Christian and I believe she is in Heaven watching over me, I still grieve for her. The grief has faded some over the years, but then something will happen and it will be as sharp and painful as it was that day in 2002.

The sucky part about aging is people you love start dying. This year I've had to major losses. My great aunt Dorothy, who was not truly out of the blue since she was in her 90's and not in great health, and my dear friend Kathy who died suddenly. In a lot of ways, my grief for my mom is mingled in the grief of these losses, especially Kathy's.

Sadly, death is a part of life and we will all lose loved ones along the way. Hug your loved ones tight today for me.

Online Friends are Just Friends

Image: theiddm.wordpress.com

Today I'm grieving a friend who passed away suddenly yesterday. I never met her in person, but she was still a wonderful and dear friend. I met her on a forum that started for a very special kind of perfume, but over the years it became such more. Even though I had never met Kathy in person, we had been friends over a decade.

When I was a kid, I never had a lot of friends. I've always been an introvert and being a geek didn't help matters. Now that I'm older, I don't get out a lot. In part because of my chronic pain but in part because I'm still an introvert.

But the internet gives us the ability to be able to make friends all over the world. Even though I may never met most of my online friends in person, they are still my friends. We share our lives and our issues thanks to social media. Online friends share in our triumphs and help with our issues by giving advice. Even though I didn't get a lot of visitors in the hospital last year, my online friends were there in the internet.

Today my little slice of the internet is mourning our loss. Kathy was our friend and her sudden passing is shocking and sad. But I'm thankful for all my friends, online and off, because they bring joy to my life.

Grief and Elsa

Image: disney.wikia.com

I'm having a lot of grief issues with this whole seizure thing. I grieve for my lost days, I grieve for the fact that I could have easily died, and I grieve for the inability to give Emily the best Christmas ever.

Yes, I know a lot of these, especially the last is silly and stupid. But I grieve all the same. I think part of this is that I'm Elsa.

Not with the cool freezing powers but 'conceal don't feel' is something that is very familiar to me. My parents Elsa-ised me without realizing it. My sister was a problem child, always getting into trouble. So I was encouraged to be the good child. It wasn't too much of  a stretch for me, but I tended to take it too far sometimes. I would push my feeling down and push my feelings down until I would get to a breaking point and just explode. Just like Elsa, but again, less cool.

This caused me a lot of problems with relationships. My first serious relationship was full of fighting in part because I sucked at fighting. Luckily I learned how to fight better which has helped with things with me and Todd. That's why we've been married for 8 years.

But I'm experiencing the 'conceal don't feel' again with all the grief I'm feeling. I know logically that I shouldn't be as upset as I am, but I am. I keep crying and feeling sad. I know that I need to let the grief run it's course but my Elsa-ness doesn't want to let me.

So dear friends, I may be a little up and down for a little while. Todd and I have a plan to work on changing my lifestyle but it's going to take a while. Even he realizes that he's an odd duck the way he make a 360 change to his lifestyle after he got his MS diagnosis.

I just need some gentle handling in the next week or so. I promise not to wallow too long.  Christmas is going to be rough this year and even though I'll want to 'conceal don't feel' through the holidays I'll try to feel in a normal sort of way.