Growing up I was the youngest of three children. I grew up in a typical household and the typical order of the siblings. Because I was the younger one I usually followed my brother and sister around.

Grief is like that. Like an annoying little brother or sister that just follows you around and won’t leave you alone. Its always there. Some days it allows me to have very good days where I am cheerful, and not a painful memory crosses my mind, but its always there. There is always a nagging sense even on my good days that it is still close by.

Recently on a social media post about grief I read, “Some days all I want to do is stay in bed, holding my grief close. But I have trained it now so it follows me out into the world, staying a respectable distance behind, allowing me to laugh and live as well as cry and die”. I just love that. It shows the ebbing and flowing and reality of grief. 

I’m not broken though. As the statement below says, but I’m trying to discover my life after death. What it all means now living without my father, and the reality that I cannot call him anymore, or see him, and that he will not show up to life events. Though he will always be close to me in spirit I have to learn to find the beauty in this ugly reality.

God never promised a care free life free from pain on this side of heaven, but with him by my side I can start making that second stitch.