No Way Around It

I read a few days from a blogger friend how grief is a circle. She's farther down her path of grief after losing 2 children and she says that grief is a cycle, one that I'm learning is quite vicious. Many times during this experience with Graham I've thought that I could skip over some of the grieving process, that since his death was an expected outcome, that somehow I could go around this huge thing, or at least just cut a corner or two. But I'm learning that with grief there's really no preparation, there's no cutting corners, there's no way around it, you have to go through it. Some days you feel like you've finally getting back into the swing of things, like you've really come to terms with this life, until you just have a day that knocks you back to day one. A day where your heart literally feels like it's being ripped from your chest. A day that you stop at the cemetery and the reality of the situation hits like a ton of bricks, again. A day when someone asks how many kids you have and you just have to answer with how many kids you have living with you, because it's too hard to explain why you have 3 kids but only 2 here. A day when things are just hard, and you just miss the sweet little baby you once held in your arms.

But then I'm reminded of how good my life really is, how much Heavenly Father has truly blessed me. Our Sunday School lesson this week was on Job and his trials. How he had EVERYTHING taken from him, and he grieved for his losses and his trials, yet he never doubted God. And as his trials came to an end, Heavenly Father blessed him two-fold. The days are hard when the grief hits, when a new stage comes, but I always have to remind myself of my blessings. And God is good, that's for sure.