The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

Aren't they beautiful? When you lose a child, it's virtually impossible to explain how it feels, how lost and broken you are, how upside down your life and your future have become. It is utterly despairing. The only way you can get close to anyone "understanding" is talking to someone who has experienced it.   And so, over time, you form a new group of friends, they are your Grief Friends.  Today I'm going to introduce you to a few of mine.  This blog post started as a piece on the extra complications of grief, and it is turning out to be so much more.  It's my favorite, and I'm so sorry I have to write it. Losing a child is absolutely heartbreaking and indescribable, no matter the cause.  One loss is not more devasting than the next - it's all horrible.   I do, however, think some of the circumstances behind a loss can add an additional layer or layers of incomprehensible devastation that complicates that loss.   I'd like

So, I think I told you that I've been having a hard time keeping myself together.  Well, last Sunday, I felt like I was having a super solid day. I was well rested, the kids were home, it was an okay day. We went to church, I got through the worship songs without breaking down!  Music. That goes straight to the heart, doesn't it?  But I was doing it! I was on my way to a dry Sunday.  Until I saw him. A young boy with his mom.  He came over to her with that look of excitement on his face.  You know the one:  "Mama!" When they are young enough to be excited to see you, to give you a big hug, to still sit on your lap.  You can rub their back and maybe sneak in a kiss on the back of that neck.  Get in a smell.  A nuzzle.  Feel his hair.  I think most of you can relate.  I smiled.  I just watched them interact.  It was so sweet.  And then my mind betrayed my solid day.  It interjected: "What wouldn't you give to go back, if even for a minute?"  How d

What does month eleven look like?  How has grief changed, evolved?  To be honest, month eleven feels a whole lot like month one.  I have noticed that my game face is much harder to put on. That I can only handle being out in public for a few hours most days. I felt like I was at work a lot last month, and as it turned out on payday, I was literally there 6 hours. All month.  It felt like it was hard to get there, hard to concentrate, hard to complete the simplest tasks that I've been doing for 18 years.   I find that my tears just fall from my face, abruptly and in unstoppable repetition.  They don't take a few moments to work up to a waterfall, they just start.  Stopping them has become increasingly more difficult.  I find that it's harder to write, still hard to read, and I feel very disconnected and incomplete.  I think a lot about the people in my life, but find it difficult to reach out to any of them.  Occasionally I will send a text and see if someone would li