Grief has the...

...capacity to have two significant affects on the human soul. The first, is the obvious, it can completely paralyze you; however, the second, is the unexpected. Those who have lived through grief...whether it is one significant event or a chain reaction of events that occur for a prolonged period of time can attest to this...

...Grief has the capacity to empower you...you see...grief can be a tool...a source...those who have lived it can tell you...grief can be the fiercest source of energy known to man...if you can harness it as I have...there isn't anything you can't accomplish...this doesn't happen over a day or a week...this takes time...practice...discipline...and committment...it is a hard road...but for me it was my way out...

...but, what do you do in between...before you get to this point...how do you survive...how do you cope...where is your lifeline...is it your friends...your family...work...? How to manage the grief is the problem...but here's the thing...the solution for me...will not be the exact solution for you...grief...like love is very much like a snow flake...no two match...

...grief is disorienting...disorienting isn't a word professionals discuss on a regular basis...we deal with grief in the "short-term", but this is where grief does it's damage...the day my father died...I was in shock...it was as if time itself slowed...people didn't walk as fast...or talk as fast...the wind felt different on my face...the sun hit my eyes with a glare that was foreign to me...

...Heather would later tell me that she felt as though I died the day my father died...she was right...I hated that she was right, I hated that I knew life as I imagined it...as I dreamed about for decades was gone...just like that...never would it be the same...you see...my fatal mistake was that I never planned on not having Dad in my life...and why should I imagine such influential and loving person not in my life...it is quite possible that it was the first and only time in my life that I had been a blind optimist...

...and so there I was...grieving...not knowing that I was sick inside...dead to the world...not understanding the symptoms...lost...and not found...I can not tell you the day I realized I was in over my head...but I can describe to you how I didn't feel...how I felt as though I had been hit over the head and woke up in a box void of light or air...complete isolation and darkness...

...those who were closest to me were the first to be pushed away..."they didn't understand" I thought...but truth is...it wouldn't have mattered what they said or did...I was in a storm...cut off...left to fend for myself in a battle that I wasn't prepared for...a battle that would forever change, not only how I view the world...but how I view myself...

jwcIII