Run The Race

Grieving is such a selfish emotion... it's not that the person who is grieving is selfish - it's that everyone grieves in their own way on their own time. When Elliot died, others around us grieved for us, but I don't think anyone could really grieve Elliot the way Ron and I did because nobody had a relationship with him except us.  My Mother's death, on the other hand, created much grieving from a number of people - and the levels and the stages of grief vary tremendously among each of these people. Next week will be a year since my Mother passed away.  I can't believe it. Those of us who are grieving had a unique relationship with my Mother.  I cannot compare my grief to my Dad's because I did not share the intimacy they had together for 40 years.  I cannot compare my grief to either of my siblings because we each had a unique connection with her on different levels.  For example, my sister lived only a few miles down the road from my parents, and, there...

TEN years people... this Friday, Ron and I have been married for 10 years!  Woohoo! At Celebrate Recovery I often introduce myself as someone who gets to be a part of a healthy marriage.  I am blown away by this possibility... I thought for sure I had blown it... no grace could be big enough to bring me back to enough of a purified state that would allow me to marry a man that would cherish me. I WAS WRONG. God is so much bigger than our choices and our circumstances.  Don't get me wrong; there are still consequences to choices that I made, but the shame associated with those choices are gone and there is a simple reminder often associated with some of the resulting scars - but ultimately all things have been made new, as scripture promises. Many times I hear stories in books or on the radio that say, "I went into the marriage with blinders on, and I wasn't expecting it to be so hard."  I was exactly the opposite - I went in assuming it was going to be ...

During the first year of my grief I did not blog, but I did have a group of friends that I would send emails to in order to share my thoughts and feelings.  The entry below is something I shared at this time last year - 5 months after Elliot died.