Life Goes On...

Life goes on. I say this somewhat reluctantly. Also I say this not so much for encouragement but because after tragedy strikes there is other choice. Life goes on. Though there are times were this may not feel to be the case, the moments when time can move no slower, the times when you wish things like time didn’t exist; life goes on. Months roll by, I add anther book to the bereavement section of my library but the pain is still real. I guess when I think about it, I don’t know why I thought it would go away or get better. Life doesn’t seemed so concerned with my problems, not once has this world slowed down and asked, “I wonder how that Ross Vego is doing?” I guess life just has better things to be doing on a Tuesday night…

This blog post needs an uplifting spin. I look back and search for the positive in my life. I no longer take the gift of life for granted, I can’t express in words how much I realize this or how often I think about it. I always worried about my family, losing one of my parents or a grandparent but I was so foolish to think that Amber was going to be with me forever; that she would always be me crutch through the tough times and someone to laugh with through the good times (I know there are so many others out there that feel exactly the same way. I always felt she was invincible.). But now I can begin to grasp the just how quickly life is given and taken away from us. How childish we are in thinking that it’s ours to do as we please with. I say again like I have said to so many of you, take nothing for granted. Cherish the moments, the seconds you have with those you love. Call someone you haven’t talked to in awhile. Tell people you love them even if you think they know. Never miss out on an opportunity you think some day you might regret.

Laughing Again

I was reading through Bonnie's blog (http://sweetcarolinebaby.blogspot.com) the other day and found she had stumbled upon something hugely important, happiness. The times when I am genuinely happy aren't quite as often as I would like them to be and to top that off when one of these glimpses of happiness arises, guilt sets in. It seems to be a struggle that most grievers face; the guilt of laughing again. I found a quote in I wasn't ready to say Goodbye that I wanted to share,


"At times, it's hard to laugh - we feel guilty for "going on." We wonder if our laughing makes our grief less real - if our memories will fade - if people will think we don't miss the deceased.

If only there were rules to grief, how much easier it would be. Laughter and happiness can become haunting. How should we look? How should we act? If we look like we are having fun, what might people think? Is it okay to just forget for a while - to try and escape what has happened?

The answers are all within your heart. There is nothing you need to do, or act like, for the sake of others. Don't worry about how anyone perceives you. It's alright to escape for a while, to watch a comedy - to laugh. Remember, the person who has passed on is one who would wish you nothing but the best. Your laughter becomes their laughter as well."


So often I feel like the man in the picture, wearing a mask for the world to see. A mask that shows that I'm happy again, laughing once more but inside there is a struggle. Is it right for me to laugh, is it too soon? I think it might be time. Time to stop hating life and start enjoying it, time to stop feeling guilty and start feeling free, time to cry less and to start laughing again. And if you aren't there yet, that's okay. I'm not sure I'm there yet either but I'm hopeful that someday I will be there.

Birds of Sorrow

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair." ~ Chinese Proverb

Harriet Sarnoff Schiff said, "Unless we are suicidal, we have no alternative." So here we are, with a choice. No, not the choice to live or take our own life, but the choice wether we live or just exist.

When we loss someone who means so much to us we find it hard to find the motivation to keep living. So many of us choose to opt out and begin just existing. There are so people out there who have choose this lifestyle of barely getting by. They eat, sleep, go to work, and functioning but inside they're hollow. So often I feel I wake up and exist; I want to live.

The Invisible Blanket

"There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would take to one another and not to me." ~ C. S. Lewis

"Grief sometimes changes a person's lifestyle and personality. Pain becomes overwhelming. There is a feeling of dejection, a loss of interest, and inhibition of activities, panic, hostility toward one's self, and other signs of low self-esteem."

"Our society conditions is to be quiet in the face of death. Doctors and nurses often so not talk about it. Death is made to seem like something which we should be ashamed. Self-esteem is lost. We are hurt. And "maybe I'm to blame."

"Immediately after the funeral, a grieving person often withdraws to himself. He may not go to work. He may not go to church. He usually avoids social activities. "No, no, no. I don't want to go. I'm not interested! I just don't have any purpose in life any more. I don't feel like getting up in the morning. I don't feel like cooking. There's no one to cook for. What's the use." ~ Bill Flatt

As I go back and look through these books I find myself wanting to be better but continually coming up short. I want to place myself in one these stages of grief so I can know how I am progressing or regressing for that matter is concerned. But I can't. I don't know where to start. I feel though six months later I should see some progress to finding this new norm of mine but I'm not sure that I am. I know I can pretend like I am when I need to. Maybe that's what its all about, I really don't think it is. You see these people who lost loved ones long before I was ever born and you hear the stories you should have have seen them before... I coming to think that this new norm may not be what I am hoping for.

Bill Flatt in his book Growing through Grief had this to offer, "If you are at a low point now, hang on. You cannot go any lower when you hit bottom. And time may help you a great deal. Depression tends to go in cycles. God has given you additional life; He wants you to use it. There will be plenty of time to die "when your time comes.""

"Think of it this way: If you had died before your loved one, how would you want your loved ones to react? You would want them to Express sorrow at the loss, to respect and appreciate your memory, and then to go on with their lives. That's what I want you to do. As one widower in one of our groups said, "I suddenly realized that I have some more leaves in my book to write." And you do, too. It takes strength and courage to write them, but you can do it. And you will be glad you did."

I'm hanging on but not by much. I smile but I'm not sure what for. I laugh but its out politeness. I pray that I'll never see the bottom again but life shows no favoritism. And if this is depression I hope its more like chicken pox than cancer. I hope that you go through it once and then are immune to it opposed to being something that I will struggle with the rest of my life. But what I want more than anything is just the capability to live life once again. I know life will never be the same and I am prepared to handle that. But like in that first quote I want to know how to remove this blanket that lies in between me and the rest of the world.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

"Sometimes when one person is missing the whole word seems depopulated." ~ Lamartine

These past six months have been the hardest time of my short life. Its been near impossible at moments to continue on. C. S. Lewis said it best, "The act of living is different all through. Her absence is like the sky, spread all over everything." There is no escaping the darkness and pain that loss can make you feel. BUT I am ready to begin my search for the silver lining (well not really but living in the dark is not how life was meant to be). Wolfelt says in Understanding Your Grief, "Still, you are blessed. Your life has a purpose and meaning without the presence of the person who died. It will take you some time and feel this through for yourself."

I hope within these blogs you begin to see a shimmer of light, I hope you can begin to see the silver lining. I hope we can look back at the pictures and think about those memories and smile, I hope you can remember the good times we had and laugh (and maybe cry a little every now and then). Thank you all for your love and support through this time of heartache. Thank you for the encouragement. I know this is a slow process and for those of you walking with I hope you too can someday see the silver lining. "Usually there is not one great moment of "arrival," but subtle changes and small advancements. It's helpful to have gratitude for even small steps forward. If you are beginning to taste your food again, be thankful. If you mustered the energy to meet your friend for lunch, be grateful. If you finally for a good night's sleep, rejoice," Wolfelt.

"What wound wound did ever heal but by degrees?" ~ William Shakespeare

"There is no sudden , striking, and emotional transition. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight, when you first notice them they have already been going on for some time." ~ C. S. Lewis

"The essence of finding meaning in the future is not to forget my past, as I have been told, but instead to embrace my past. For it is in listening in music of the past that I can sing in the present and dance into the future." ~ Alan Wolfelt

Long Ride Home (Part 2)

I've had some time to think about you

And watch the sun sink like a stone

I've had some time to think about you

On the long ride home

~Patty Griffin

I've found that time alone can be be both haunting and healing, sometimes it helps and sometimes it hinders. Often it seems that most people are too afraid of what alone time can do, I know I was and still am at moments. I found one of the hardest problems I have had throughout these past couple of months is dealing with and distinguishing past memories. What I mean is this; Memories are a blessing, a gift from God, something that should be cherished BUT the questions, the constant staring in the rear-view mirror, the ability the past has to disable present and distort the future, the what-ifs and whys can drive even the most devoted lives to a halt.

(It truly saddens me to say this...) There are nights like tonight when I'll stay up hours blogging and looking through the highlighted portions of books I have read, hours spent flipping through baby pictures, time spent thinking about 'you really never know how much you'll miss them until they're gone', hours spent saying if I could do it over "I would..." reliving the good times and recalling the bad. Sometimes these moments have just been too much for me to handle, days when I literally couldn't function, for awhile if you did see me out of bed I really wasn't there, and then there were the days I just didn't get out bed at all. So what do I do when life is too much? I try to push the memories to the side (and I am so ashamed for it). Its like I'm not sure what else to do with them, and then the guilt sets in. I feel horrible for it, so I open the flood gates and let everything back in. Its seems to be a reoccurring theme. I can't function, so I pretend like nothing ever happened, I begin to feel bad for living again, the memories overtake me, and once again I can't function.

So I guess 'where I'm at' right now in this stage of my life is I'm still not ready to handle it, life is too much for me sometimes... The view in the mirror keeps me from going anywhere and the road over the horizon is always just out reach (kind of like that picture above). There is the bar in Memphis that promises "Free Burgers Tomorrow." That's how I feel. Everyday I wake up and I tell myself "just get through today tomorrow will be better". But tomorrow never comes. I'm coming to understand more and more just how different life will be but I not sure I'll truly ever grasp that this might be as good as life gets?

"Still, there's no denying that in some sense I 'feel better,' and with comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one's unhappiness." ~ C. S. Lewis

"I may try to protect myself from my sadness by not talking about my loss. I may even secretly hope that the person who died will come back if I don't talk about it. Yet, as difficult as it is, I must feel it to heal it." ~ Alan Wolfelt

Lesson 3. The Wilderness

"Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light,

so when we are in sorrow then the light is nearest to all of us." -Meister Eckhart

"Think of your grief as a wilderness - a vast, mountainous, inhospitable forest. You are in the wilderness now. You are in the midst of unfamiliar and often brutal surroundings. You are cold and tired. Yet you must journey through this wilderness. To find your way out, you must become acquainted with its terrain and learn to follow the sometimes hard-to-find trail that leads to healing... And even when you've become a master journeyer, and you know well the terrain of your grief, you will at times feel like you are backtracking and being ravaged by the forces around you. This too, is the nature of grief. Complete mastery of grief is not possible. Just as we cannot control the winds and the storms and the beasts in nature, we can never have total dominion over our grief."

Lost, disoriented, bewildered. Caught in the thicket of the wilderness, a good day consists of a glimmer of light passing trough the trees to remind me that hope is still out there. Hope for something good to enter back in this dark forest. Its the little things that help me get by; a child laughing, a phone call from Pops seeing how everything is going, a hug from Jenny. Wilderness is such a incredible analogy for early on in the bereavement. As we walk through the wilderness, I hope you can see the glimmer of light, I hope that you aren't afraid to cry out for help, I hope you can find support and love from God and the people that surround you.

"How do you ever find your way out of the wilderness of your grief? You don't have to dwell there forever, do you? The good is no, you don't have to dwell there forever. But just as any significant experience in your life, the wilderness will always live inside you and be a part of who you are... But you may also be coming to understand one of the fundamental truths of grief: Your journey will never truly end. People so not "get over" grief... we are all forever changed by the experience of grief."