On grief and bravery....

Life is hard.

It's unpredictable.

In fact the only thing predictable about life is it's unpredictability. 

I miss my father so much, that sometimes the depth of my sadness makes it hard for me to breathe.

And pick up a pen to write? 
Forget it.

It's as if my creativity died with my dad.  

I have things that want to come out. 

I have thoughts that I want to write about, but the words are stuck in some weird grief purgatory.

It's as if there is a disconnect between my mind and the outside world.

The loss I have experienced is in every corner of my life.  It's in the corner of the living room where we would sit on the couch and watch Hallmark movies.  Or where he excitedly opened his Christmas presents on Christmas day.  

It's in every phone call I still make, forgetting he will never answer my calls again.  

It's in my car where he and I logged a millenary of hours driving to and from our nightly dinners and The Cleveland Clinic.  Confession time:  His pajamas are still folded on the backseat and his half eaten package of Hall's cough drops are still in the dash compartment.  At this point I'm fairly sure I will eventually sell the car with his pajamas right where he left them, because I can't wrap my head around removing them from the backseat... 

The loss is in my wife's eyes as she says to me:  "I don't know what it's like to be married to you.  We have yet to have a normal life." 

The truth is death is painful and walking through the grief requires a colossal amount of bravery.  A bravery I'm not always sure I possess.  As the waves of life throw me about, from side to side, I know the only way through this grief is to allow myself to feel it.  I can't ward it off.  I can't rid myself of it.  I can only turn inward to reflect, honor my heart's request for quietness, and remember the only way to emerge into the light of a new day is to experience the previously dark night.