After something unexpectedly tragic happens, it can be very difficult to find some type of new normal. This is my journey to find that new normal.
Eudaimonia: n. "a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous."
Letters to My Father (12.25.13)
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Dear Dad,
Today feels so incomplete without you. There are no words for this kind of sadness. There is absolutely nothing at all.
I know what it feels like to fly. It feels like being held by your arms and being swung around in circles as we are both getting dizzy and giggling like crazy. It feels like I'm six years old again in the backyard at Grandma's house. Caleb is playing baseball outside with our cousins John, Angel and the twins, Tim and James. My hair is bleached by the sun a bright yellow blonde in messy pigtails and my skin is all tanned. Our fort that we built out of the cardboard boxes that the new couches came in is set up with a sign that says "Home Sweet Home, Wecome" instead of "Home Sweet Home, Welcome." "Again, Howie, again!" I laugh and scream with my arms stretched out towards you. You smile back and grab my arms to swing me in circles more and before I know it my legs are off the ground and I'm flying again. I can tell you love Momma and she loves you back. You are growing on me and I'm growing on you too. I can tell you make Momm...
These last four years have been just awful for my personal life. I have felt loss after loss, picking myself up slowly just to be hit again. I've felt each sharp stab and ache from the tearing and healing of my heart. With every new betrayal or loss I've felt like I've been auctioning off my parts. "You want my heart?" Take it, it's a wreck anyway. "Do I hear an offer for my lungs?" That's fine, you can have them. I already feel like I'm drowning by making you comfortable with your ideas about love. "Any bidders for my arms and legs?" Take them if you must. I've grown used to comforting myself in silence and remaining in one place. *** The year after Howard died we saw who our true friends were. Some people felt very uncomfortable around us. We could feel it even though they never said a word. It's almost incredible how dull you feel after loss but how sometimes you have this hei...
Grief will find and affect us all one way or another. For me, the inevitability of that statement was disturbingly profound. Researching grief and coping mechanisms felt like wading through a pool of murky water. I first started out looking for blogs like mine that talked about a specific loss. Most of the blogs I found I couldn’t relate to because a lot of them were about spouses or people who lost their parents later in life. I then moved on to watching Ted Talks to see what some of their speakers were saying about grief. I even searched the self-help section of Barnes and Noble for information. What I did find got me meditating on an assumption that grief can be very reliant on culture. Thus begging the question: If culture really is a independent factor, how are we supposed to grieve? When I started researching grief I found there were some cultures out there that, in a way, celebrated the end of life—one with jazz music. An article on ...
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