Why do we have to grieve? Why does it take so long to feel better when a loved one passes? Why does it have to hurt so long? If someone could just give me a date when this grieving period will be over then I can make a paper chain, pull off a link every day, and it will make it go faster. My son passed away six weeks ago. I am getting up every morning at my normal time, making up the bed, getting dressed, leaving the house, smiling, and taking care of my business. To those who don’t know, I probably just look like my normal self, maybe just a bit quieter. If you didn’t know about my loss, you probably couldn’t tell that I am heartbroken on the inside. The definition of grieve, according to Oxford Living Dictionaries, is to feel intense sorrow; to cause great distress. In a world where we order fast food through a speaker, read our news from the sidebar of our Facebook page, get our new...

Other people’s dreams are so boring…but I am going to share this one with you anyway. My 29 year old son passed away on October 1st. This past week was particularly hard because on November 1st, it was a reminder all day long that one month had passed. He passed away late in the evening on October 1st. So all day long on November 1st, I made myself sick wondering if he had a good day on October 1. Was the sun shining? Did he play tennis? Did he have a great day? I hated thinking all of those things but I couldn’t make myself stop thinking about it. To a mother, no matter their age, they are still your baby, their bodies just got bigger. Yesterday, early Sunday morning before waking up for the day, I had a dream. In the dream a non-descript woman in white said, “Come with me.” I asked her where we were going. She said, “You will see.” Together, we walked down an empty hall. We turned a...

Well, it’s been 17 days since we were notified of our son’s passing.  There have been so many gestures of support from my real life friends and my Facebook friends. There is no way to express how comforting this is.  People have helped us in ways that I would have never dreamed to ask someone to do. My husband and I typically don’t ask other people to do things for us because we never want to put people out. This experience has taught me that there are more ways to help someone besides bringing a covered dish.  I need to step up my game so I am grateful for these lessons. I will share a few examples of the type of help I have received.  Within 24 hours of finding out about our loss, a couple that we are friends with stopped to ask how they could help.  Normally, I would have just said, “If we think of something we will let you know.”  Instead I blurted out, ” I need food.”  My two...