grief and grace and gratitude

 My preference would always be AVOIDING the unpredictable.  Four tremendous losses in 2.5 years...unpredictable.  Losing my only child, my miracle boy, in an accident...unpredictable.  Thoughtless words that add insult to injury...unpredictable.  I could go on and on.  Life itself is unpredictable.   My trauma scarred brain and heart scream...enough, enough, we can't take anymore unpredictable!  I've avoided situations with large numbers of people, not knowing whom I might see and what they might say to me.  I've avoided one on one contact with people who don't understand my grief or who have wounded me already.  I avoid chaos and things that make me uncomfortable. (For example, I will not be participating with my anatomy class on our yearly field trip to the cadaver lab at our local community college...too uncomfortable and unpredictable this year!) My emotions are already too unpredictable on their own. I find myself drawn to peop...

 There should be another "gr" word in the title of this blog...growth.   In the 3+ years since my dad died, I have tried to minimize my grief.  And then my brother died.  And then my mom died.  And then we lost Christopher, our only child. (I smile when I write that, thinking of how he called himself a "single child" when he was little.) Grief on grief on grief on grief...and I kept trying to make it smaller so it didn't overwhelm me.  My grief counselor told me that I would be in a relationship with grief for the rest of my life.  Okay, fine.  No choice there, but at least I could make grief more compact so it didn't demand so much space, right?  So it wasn't so noticeable. I'd rather carry around a marble-sized grief than a bowling ball-sized grief every day of my life.   In case you are wondering how it's going, pick up the next bowling ball you see and try to squish it.  Same for me.  Shrinking grief is as impossi...