Surviving Grief

🌿 From the Center of Ourselves: Finding Peace After Loss "When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle... joy in the now... peace in the here... love in me and thee." —G. F. Sear 💭 When Grief Interrupts the Everyday Our minds so often return to the person we lost. The memories, the silence, the things left undone— They live quietly beneath the surface of our days. Today, while cooking dinner, something shifted. I didn’t have to chop the hamburger as finely as Mark liked it. That realization felt oddly freeing— And then immediately, it ached. Because of course I’d gladly dice meat into a hundred tiny pieces if it meant he could sit beside me at the table again. 🎶 Choosing a Different Response That small moment could’ve undone me. But instead, I made a choice. I turned on our favorite playlist. Let the music fill the space between sorrow and silence. He was there in every lyric. But so was...

  💔 Letting Go Without Losing Him 🕯️ Opening Reflection "The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude." —Washington Irving Today's passage stopped me in my tracks. It made me ask myself a difficult question: Am I holding on to grief as a way to hold on to Mark? 🌙 Dreams That Stir the Soul Bryce and I have both had dreams about Mark lately—odd, vivid dreams that leave us wondering when we wake. Are they just the mind’s way of missing someone so deeply? Or is Mark gently reminding us he’s still with us in spirit? 📦 Packing Memories, Not Just Boxes As we prepare to leave this house, every drawer, every closet, every corner echoes with memories. Mark’s presence is everywhere—from the tools he used to the notes he wrote. I keep finding pieces of him, and while I’m g...