Tip for Grievers #24

Find your grief legs. One day in grief may or may not look like the last...or the next.

Just when I was patting myself on the head. "Good little griever. You really have this grief thing down!" Thinking myself as acing the grief section of the test of life. Then, wham! I just stumbled into a cavern of grief. That'll show me.

The proximate cause? A row of glowing, golding, lemoning gingko trees.

Tom and I used to lie in bed on fall afternoons, cuddling and chatting as we admired the gorgeous gingkos. And this year, I don't have have him to share them with.

Suddenly, I was falling into a place I hadn't seen before. Or at least not since the days soon after Tom died. Overwhelmed by a sudden panic, I texted a friend. He called me right away and helped me breathe my way back to myself. (Thank you, Lars Kallman!)

It reminds me a little of being on shipboard. (Not these huge megalithic cruise ships that barely seem to move, but old fashioned cargo ships or passenger liners.) You had to find your sea legs to stay stable. Your knees had to stay soft to handle the rolls. Well, you need grief legs too. They too have to be soft and labile. You need friends and sensei. They really help you ride out the storms.