Good Grief~

Pregnancies and funerals come in three's.

This year I've held two brand new beautiful little babies. And the third is due in September. I remember the day J told me "they" were going to have a baby. I was happy, as I always am when the word baby pops into a conversation. But my mind was reeling. This isn't how to fix a shitty marriage. So when miss j told me her mommy had a baby in her tummy I smiled and planned and waited. I love little L more than I ever thought possible. I feel like they are my family. And when word came that my cousin was having a little may surprise I just waited...for baby #3. Months and months of waiting turned into little baby boy, name still undecided. I don't know where the whole tri-pregnancy thing comes from but there it is--a beautiful little trio of everything that is sweet and pure.

I'm trying not to be morbid. I'm not sure how to describe it...it's not curiosity, not particularly intriguing, it's just there--death is a part of life. I'm extremely passionate about life and in that respect I guess I just give death a small portion of my time, to be fair. I have a healthy fear of death. The unknown I guess. It's not from naivety really, because I have experienced death both of family members and friends, young people and old, from long diseases and unexpected accidents. I have fear, and yet rationally I know not to be afraid. My faith, my believe in Heaven cements my resolve. But I've gone to two funerals in three months. And I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Grief fascinates me--the stone lobbed into the pond instantly followed by ripples heading out in different directions, at different speeds and varying degrees until they vanish. Maybe I should go back to school and become a therapist already. People fascinate me; their reactions, both healthy and unhealthy, both rational and irrational. I'm from a family that rallies around one another. We stop everything and go to each other. We bring food, we talk, we eat and we get through each moment until it becomes bearable on our own. (I guess that's why I can't shake these people no matter how angry I get. We always manage to be there for each other, once we get through all the dysfunction!)

The writer in me comes out and the pieces, the processes stick in my mind long after a memorial. Everyone deals with grief differently, and I want to understand it. I want to help people through it. In between realizing that you've just lost a person from your daily life you're forced to make decisions and choices not just for you but for your family as well. I've just got all these bolts of energy, these random thoughts on the subject of death of dying these days. There doesn't seem to be any closure or sense to any of it.

Somehow I get comfort knowing that none of it makes any sense at all. That it isn't supposed to. That we are created beings and death is a part of our life. But it isn't the end.