Sunday, October 28, 2012

Grief Comes in Waves

I'm a SF Giants fan.  My daughters live in San Francisco and you can't help but catch the fever even as far down as the Monterey area where I live.  My brother, on the other hand, was a big Detroit Tigers fan.  We spent the first years of our childhoods in Ohio, then moved to California like so many other dreamers in the '60's.  My oldest sister had graduated from high school so didn't last long here -- she returned to the Buckeye State as soon as she could and lives there still.  So I do feel a little bit like a traitor for not sticking with the Tigers as my fav team (I'm sure I probably made some "cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye" promise to my brother to to never forsake them when we were kids).  There was that time that I got so mad at him over something that I tore up his Rocky Calaveto baseball card--Rocky and Al Kaline were his favorite players, of course.

Anyway, I've had the flu this weekend so haven't been up to much beyond sleeping, playing on the computer, and watching the World Series.  Suddenly it all hit.  I missed my brother.  I missed my dad.  I missed my husband.  I missed my mom.  And my mind ran the course of things I'd read:  "Okay, you can grieve and feel sad, but you can't allow yourself to 'stay' there," or "Okay, now remember all the good things and happiness they brought you -- think about that, not sad thoughts."  But I also remember that "Grief comes in waves," and sometimes it comes when you least expect it.

And sometimes, for whatever weird reason, I welcome it -- it makes me feel alive, it's proof that they were here and our love was real, it honors them to know they are not forgotten.

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