Embrace It - it's about LIFE - always!

I am thinking of what my little family went through, years ago, successfully dealing with grief-shock and healing in an intense sudden death scenario of our closest loved one.

And I realized that novel coronavirus was creating that scenario in the thousands! The dead are at peace and prayed for, just in case, but for a bit, every one of the grieved is in a place said to be one of the worst. Sudden loss of a loved one almost always brings some unreality with it - but it passes.

Those who are grieving have others they “go-to” for a bad day, but this time they are probably no help - they loved him too- they are grieving too, or in shock and unable to help anyone. Often, the first ideas do not work at all. Then it gets frantic and you let God carry you when you realize there is no one else handy to trust with the job. Then things get done and most find the path and get on it and get there.

If you are not grieving, see if there is a thing you can do to help those who are. Even just a wish or prayer - listen, since they need to talk it out if they can. if you share words - try: “Believe!” “ Hang in, it gets bette” - these very brief affirmations work and not much else to be said for a while. IN our family “Snak-l-frok” - a nonsense word was helpful for that stunned feeling and a momentary escape form a reality that is relentless at first.

Funny: When our son and daughter and myself began to see the “great day in the morning” of grief recovery after the sudden early death of “the man o’ the house”, there was a honeymoon of recovery - we could see we were going to be okay. But then came the feeling that nothing that bad could ever happen again. There was the conviction that, somehow, our spirits would steer us clear of anything other than sunny days, forever.

NOT.
That was many years ago and it’s still one of the most difficult parts of grief-recovery - the realization that it can happen again and probably will if you’ve recovered enough to fully engage in life again. And when new grief happens, after that first time, it’s mean. But after that, with me it got normal, and there was the bonus of many of life’s former hassles being non-events by comparison at least.

AFTER this virus is done with us, is the time for concern - one can hide a lot of reality in crisis noise - but we must have figured that out long ago. Today’s images and stories and passionate support of all involved, is NOT hamming it up - it’s restoring our inner supply - it is VALID - do some of it. It is shoring us up to serve through the quiet time after the headlines are about other things again. If we reinforce all the good things and sort of AIM for the “Great day in the morning “ in it - we’ll get there.

p.s. - if you are the sort to look around and see if there is a thing you can do to help - protect their money - every scammer on the planet will get at them unless they are protected. It took me five years to fix junk that cost a lot of money and done before the funeral was over- before I had reliable speech from the shock. To this day, I think that the lowest on earth are those who exploit the resources of the grieving. Maybe that’s a thing I can do - it sure would be satisfying.