An Update of Sorts

Each night I sit and think I should be doing some blogging.  Frankly, I'm uninspired.  We have been busy.  But grief is still overshadowing much of our life. 
I have never lost a close family member before.  I didn't understand what grief was and now, I understand a portion of it.  The portion of a person who is affected, but not affected like my sister and her family.  I can still walk away and try to pretend.  It still it just doesn't seem real at all, but it is.  There is so much involved when someone dies.  More then I ever would have thought.
I had a total grief day on Sunday.  My sister is using her husband's cell phone number in order to wrap up his business dealings and her number is on hold now.  Previous I would call her cell phone and have her call me back as it's long distance to call her house number for me, but not long distance for her to call my house (I don't get that either).  So I dialed the cell phone, I got the answering machine, it was my brother in law's voice.  I almost fell to the floor.  I did not expect to hear him, he's been gone for 11 weeks.  The rest of the day I was done.  My grief was immense. 
I can not see how life will be.  I don't think any of us can see past the wall of grief right now.  My sister is functioning, sorta.  I'm asked almost each day how she's doing.  I never know what to say.  She's not doing, she's in survival mode.  I've been told she'll 'get over it'.  This statement makes me see red.  She will never get over it, she will learn to live with it, but never will she get over losing her husband, the father to her 4 kids.  Other people give me the look like she should be moving on.  If you put 1000 widows in a room, not one of them will have the same experience of grief.  There is no manual of when you should move past your grief and a checklist of next steps.  Each person is so individual as is their grief.  But again, most of these people who have made these types of comments have not had to deal with a loss so great.
We move forward.  What that means, who knows.  We pray and cry to God.  Our family is forever changed.  I don't think any of the adults are looking forward to Christmas this year, it will be very difficult.  But it will come as will all the other 'firsts'.  We are not able to stop them, the days pass and the year moves forward.  And no matter how hard we try we can not turn it back to August 20th and change the outcome.  We celebrate that Darren is in heaven, or at least we try to, if I'm honest.  It's not always easy.