If you have ever lost someone near and dear to you sometimes
you go searching for answers to life's questions.
After my mom passed away last Christmas I researched about grief
as my mom was, and still is my best friend.
A part of me was lost, never to be the same, I am changed.
I think it's time to write another chapter in my next book
on how grief can affect your "natural state of weight" as well.
You don't realize until you are in it how your weight
gets affected with emotions and grief.
On a positive note, I found this wonderful story from an old man to a younger man
who was grieving over the loss of his best friend.
It sure put things into perspective so thought I would share it.
Unfortunately no one seems to know who the old man was.. or his name
He Was Grieving Over the Death Of His Best Friend, Until and Old Man Told him This.
I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far)
and that a lot of people I've known and loved did not.
I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents,
mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks.
I have no children and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child,
but here's my two cents...
I wish I could say you get used to people dying, but I never did.
I don't want to.
It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies,
no matter the circumstances.
But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes.
My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had
for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love.
So be it.
Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I
can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged,
and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love.
And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was.
Scars are a testament to life.
Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.
As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves.
When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning,
with wreckage all around you.
Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty
and the magnificence of the ship that was,
and is no more, and all you can do is float.
You find some piece of wreckage and you hang on for a while.
Maybe it's some physical thing.
Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph.
Maybe it's a person who is also floating.
For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall
and crash over you without mercy.
They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath.
All you can do is hang on and float.
After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months,
you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall,
but they come further apart.
When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out.
But in between, you can breathe, you can function.
You never know what's going to trigger the grief.
It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection,
the smell of a cup of coffee.
It can be just about anything... and the waves come crashing.
But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody,
you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall.
Or 50 feet tall.
And while they still come, they come further apart.
You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas,
or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part,
and prepare yourself.
And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will,
again, come out of the other side.
Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny pieces of the wreckage,
but you'll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming,
and somehow you don't really want them to.
But you learn that you'll survive them.
And other waves will come.
And you'll survive them too.
If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves.
And lots of shipwrecks.
Luv Wendy,
Remember To Always Be Fabulous
