Friday, March 16, 2012

Blogging as Therapy

'Journal Entry' photo (c) 2010, Joel Montes de Oca - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/When my sister passed away I knew it was going to be hard for me.  I knew several friends that sought counseling after a divorce or a death in their lives.  Keeping a journal was one therapy tool that many of them used to cope with their feelings.  I decided to use blogging as therapy.  I knew it would help me process my thoughts and my family and friends could read my posts.  I know a blog about death and grieving is not the most popular but for my purpose it has helped me cope with my loss.  The one thing that binds us all together is that nobody is immune to loss.  Each of us deals with loss in our own way and I hope my blog will help others realize that their not alone in their pain.  Death can be hard to talk about and I knew I didn't want to internalize my feelings.  Blogging as therapy has worked for me.  There is some comfort in knowing that when my nieces are old enough and they want to read my feelings about losing their mother my blog will be here for them.
       

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Lesson in Grief

There is a saying that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle".   After my great grandpa Skeet passed away last February I honesty didn't think I would be able to handle losing a close relative.  In fact the exact thought in my head was "Dear God I'm not ready to lose any of my family".  Two weeks later my sister passed away.  I struggled with this for a very long time.  I somehow felt it was my fault that my sister died because I had that thought.  I felt God was trying to show me something.  Was he giving me a lesson in grief?  Had I tempted fate?  I had a very hard time believing that God would take a mother of two beautiful girls just to give me a lesson in grief.  It took me several months to work through the guilt and blame that came with my thought.  I choose to believe that my thought came with very bad timing and God didn't punish my sister just to teach me a lesson in grief.  In the end whether I was ready to lose a close relative or not, it still happened.  The days that I didn't know how I would get through them, I did.  Losing my sister showed me I was stronger than I thought I was.  A lesson in grief that will never be forgotten.