One might think that knowing someone only through the internet would lessen the pain of their passing. Having just learned one of my virtual friends is no longer present in this life I can now say that I feel the pain of that loss. She has been a great encourager to me and I can’t begin to express my grief. Still I know that soon I will meet her for the first time in person, and we will rejoice with the King.

@Pagan43, I miss you and look to see you then.

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This year had brought quite a bit of grief to myself and dear friends and family. My grandmother died on my mother’s birthday this year. I don’t know if I would survive that. I was asked to speak at the funeral and that was the hardest speaking experience I have ever had.

Grief speaks of loss, but sometimes it is hard to figure out what the loss really is. I grieved my grandma, but I never really knew her. I think I grieved no knowing her and never getting that opportunity more than losing her. I was raised in the military so I might have seen her an average of one week a year. My dad’s mother died when he was a boy and my mom’s dad died when I was a boy. I met my dad’s dad like 3 times in my life for a total of a few hours. He died 3 years ago. When my grandma died I also lost my history. I have friends with great grandparents they knew and spent time with regularly. I felt like my anchor had been pulled up leaving me adrift.

When I think of grief my head spins, because you can’t really feel grief unless you are attached. The problem is we tend to be attached by many threads so when those threads are cut the grief is amplified because it comes from too many directions.

I don’t like to write about grief because it reminds me of all those severed threads, but it also serves to remind me that when the world is spinning out of control that there is a rock that doesn’t move.

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Then we heard, after arriving at church, that the grandmother of one of my Youth had passed that morning. She had been sick with cancer for quite a long time and the family was told last week she would probably pass before the weekend was over. For once, it seems, the doctors were right, but not so much in a good way. I got to see the young lady who lost her grandmother but it was still to fresh for her to have really processed it. She has been going through grief for knowing but this was a new and stronger loss and so she was very raw with hurt when I got to see her. I figure I did a good job though. I didn’t ask how she was. I knew the answer and I know I hate when people ask that when they know it isn’t good. Actually I don’t remember saying much at all. I said hi and gave her a side hug. I don’t give many of those out unless someone initiates and almost never to a female but this seemed like a good time to break one of my rules.

Anyways, we had a board meeting, which I hate going to, after church and then I took two of the Youth to go see the family in delivery. The soon to be uncle and his girl friend. I was kind of hoping for screaming rage level of labor (since it was coming up on 24 hours) but she really wasn’t in that. Why did I hope for that? Hey can you think of a better way to sell abstinence to a teen girl?

As they got closer to the 24 hour mark the Dr. decided they needed to do a c-section. Mother and baby came out fine and the baby boy was about the 5th most beautiful baby I’ve seen shortly after birth.

So the day basically started with a death and ended with a birth. I think overall it was a good day but I really wish we could have skipped the death and made it a knock out awesome day.

I have to tell the new grandma about the death soon because she has a good relationship with the teen that lost her grandma, but I don’t want to break her new happy grandma bubble just yet. It was great seeing her when they brought the baby back into the room. She busted out into tears of joy like you couldn’t imagine. I wonder if that is how it is in heaven when people get saved?

So what do you think? good day or bad day?

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