The Great Escape

Just when I start to think, "I've got this.  Things are getting better." something surprises me and makes me re-think that budding confidence in my ability to cope.  Today it is three months since I said goodbye to KB.  Yes, I know that she died on January 9th but it was just minutes before midnight and I stayed until everyone else had gone home and I said goodbye one more time not because I needed to be alone but because I just couldn't let go.  It's still difficult.  This morning, when I woke up and realized that this was three months since I said goodbye, everything I was feeling that night returned and I wasn't prepared for the flood of emotion.  They did warn me about this in my grief support group but I still wasn't prepared. I know that everyone at the hospital did their best to help us all through this and at the time I wasn't immediately aware of some of the things that the doctor had asked me and maybe I wasn't fully aware of everything...

I started to attend a grief support group for people who have lost their significant other.  Last week's session was about anger.  Anger is one of the big 5 in the 5 stages of grief.  What I've learned about the 5 stages of grief is that you don't move through them like levels in a video game.  They come and go throughout your grieving and there is no prize at the end.  I guess the prize is that you find a way to survive. At the support group meeting we talked about anger and I can tell you that we feel angry about a lot of things but one thing I found interesting is that all of us in the group have felt anger toward other couples.  It's not that we are angry that they have their partner and we don't.  I thought I was the only one who felt this but maybe this is common for people who have lost their soul mate. Maybe I've always felt like this having been in love with someone who I cherished and someone who I loved and cared for very deeply every ...

I can't tell you how much I hate the title of this post.  I wish I could think of something better and I probably could but I stuck with "The Grief Journey" because it gave me a good opening line.  It's a good catalyst for getting my mind in gear to write about all of the things that piss me off about grief and since I don't plan out any of my blog posts I usually need something like that to get the thought flow started so I can shunt it to the keyboard.  But I digress.. Going through this grieving process I naturally look for support in various places and the Internet is all at once one of the greatest places and one of the worst places to find support and some wisdom.  Anybody looking for some help on the Net is going to have to wade through a bunch of broken heart images with poems overlaid and an endless stream of "organizations" that will tell you how to continue your relationship with your lost loved one and I'm sure they will also be happy...