"I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel

I was happily getting ready for my daughter Sarah to get off work down in Phoenix and drive up to spend New Years Eve with me. I tried to get her to stay down in the valley and go out with her friends, yet she continued to say she just wanted to be here with her Mom. So I had made the snacks we usually ate when she used to live at home. All her favorites: Stew with Monkey Bread, Shrimp cocktail, chips and Velveeta cheese sauce, and hot spiced apple cider.



I was just about to put the bread in the oven when my phone rang. It was a message from Sarah, which I thought would be telling me she was on her way up the mountain. Instead the words "Mom, Ashley, Carlos sister just died. She got in a car accident." I instantly remembered that here I was in this intense grief journey myself, and now this. My precious daughter just lost one of her best friends. No details yet, but by the time she drove up the mountain I had found the news report from Maryland. One vehicle involved, no names released, but there were two young men who were flown to trauma centers.

Sarah came through the door, dropped her bags and we hugged. She cried. I cried. More loss.


We spent the evening laying on the couch, barely watching the movie we picked out...each lost in our own thoughts, yet being there for each other. I asked Sarah to tell me about Ashley...bringing out her happy memories of the two of them together. We laughed some. We cried some. All this loss.

We awoke at 12:10 with some beautiful music playing at the end of the movie we ere watching...we had slept through the New Year's arrival. We said, 'Happy New Year' and Sarah fell back asleep. I watched her sleeping for another hour, making sure she was sleeping soundly, my beautiful daughter...then I quietly added another log to the wood stove and went to bed.

Thinking about all the loss...all the loss.....and thanking God for strength, courage and peace that we would both need during these next weeks as we grieve.

Welcoming in 2011

As the last days of 2010 trickled by I experienced intense grief over so many losses this year. It was an interesting feeling, to allow myself to be enveloped in sadness and to be comfortable with wearing this garment of grief.

I found it interesting that as I prepare to lead the new grief group forming at church, that I would be entering this sacred ground to look at all the loss in my own life. It wasn't pretty. I cried. I held a few sorrow events in my honor. Mostly I just allowed the grief process to take it's own course, and I followed.

It seemed everywhere I turned, grief was there. I heard the song 'I Grieve' on the TV one night, and found it on You Tube afterwards and with soul wrenching cries, I let a lot of the held in emotions to breakthrough to the Light. It was there, as the light shone on these painful memories, lost relationships, loss of mind function, loss of job, loss of health, loss of the only person in Marty's family who loved me unconditionally from the first time I let her, and loss of Marty's Gram, who came to love the hugs I gave her when we would go visit. There was just so much loss, so many tears, so much pain held deep within my soul.

I also noticed that those with whom I shared this intense grief with were not very comfortable at all. They were used to seeing me smiling, happy, full of Light and Peace and Encouraging words for everyone. They did everything they could to cheer me up, to lighten the load, to make sure I had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I did finally pretend, for their sake, that I was just fine (and I was, even in the depths of grief), and Christmas was wonderful and we were anticipating having a Happy New Year.

Yet, underneath it all. I grieve. And all is well with my soul...just as it is.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!