This image of an ocean at sunset always promotes a thoughtful mood for me. Even better, when I get to go out on the Gulf Coast beach nearby and revel in a real-moment experience. It’s been hard for me to get back on this blog in the past three weeks. Our family had to bid goodbye to yet another family member, my neice. If we’re keeping score, that makes four children my sisters and I have outlived, for one reason or another. I lost my oldest son four years ago to cancer. Enough said.

The post ‘The Grief Never Leaves You’ resonated with me so much that I reblogged it to share a couple of months back. I spoke with my sister whose daughter had just passed away, leaving four children behind. All I could offer was a quiet understanding, because we are no strangers to grief and loss. It is an undeniable fact of life. What we hold onto is the belief that we will see them all again, all those loved and lost.

We call these set-backs  a blow in our culture, because it is very much like being stunned by a violent punch. Experience enough of them and you become numb to the impacts. I have learned, the hard way, to care deeply without engaging in too much of the “could have, should have or would have dones” simply because I firmly believe that:

1. Dealing with loss in the here and now is best and
2. It is good to remember the good in the person,
3. It is even better to love them as they were and forgive them for what they weren’t,
4. So that you can embrace those left behind with you and
5. Be in the present moment, ready to lift them up and continue to care about their welfare.

So, it’s undeniably true: the grief never leaves you. You have to find the strength to live on and do the best you can at any given point. After all, you must move on, keeping your people close to your heart and gleaning what strength you can for the rest of this journey of life.

Always, Sue