I thought all day today.. I thought about how I was feeling, i thought about how I was expected to be feeling, I even thought about how others might be expecting me to feel….   Despite my intention to stay in the moment without expectation, I keep finding myself slipping into thinking… rather than being.

Everyone knows that with loss, there is a great deal of significance put around milestones like holidays, birthdays, death days .. But .. the interesting thing is, ost of that significance comes from the outside.. Yes, there are important memories around those dates.. but we have those memories around every day, we grieve some  every day.  These significant dates are when the rest of the world remembers that we are grieving ..   Even though that can be hard.. it is also nice.. the world remembers us like that.

The strange thing is .. I feel pretty good.. my life is going OK.. my family is doing well, my work is fun again… it feels funny to be feeling good right now.   Anyway.. that’s what I was thinking when I was brushing my teeth last night.. As I brushed, I was flipping through Funny Times, a cartoon newsletter we get I came across a comic by Carol Lay.. I like her stuff. it’s usually sarcastically funny.. this time it was heartfelt.. Her cartoon told of her own trouble with the holidays after the death of her brother … and the way a friend helped her reframe the holidays by asking.. ‘would your brother want you to have a crappy Christmas ?!”..
 
It was funny and right that I would stumble across this mid thought last night. This morning I wrote Carol for permission to include her comic ‘The Tree’ .. I got a brief note back with eh cartoon and permission to use it.. I also learned that her brothers name was John…

Thanks Carol..this helped me !

OK.. gotta sleep now.. nite folks.. nite Sam.. I feel you close by
-me