Regarding Grief. Regarding Mark.

My Mom's cousin passed away and his wife is grieving. It is especially hard during the Holidays. I thought I would remember Mark who passed away 12/2/02 - 8 years ago this week and remember Jerry and Rita with these words:

Oh, Rita, my heart goes out to you. You are probably doing just fine and perfectly normal under the circumstances.

I'm Dottie. I'm Radine's Daughter. I just wanted to tell you my story. In 2002, my first husband passed away at home in the bath tub. I found him and called 911. We had 2 daughters - they were 7 and 15 at the time. Mark was 43 when he died. I was 44. We lived on a short dead end road and my daughters were out trying to flag down the ambulance. They passed our house 5 times!

In the days that passed. I often felt like you feel now. Like life was going on and I felt like 1/2 of my brain had been replaced with Jello. I looked normal. In many ways, I continued to function, but I lost things. Then I would find them in the same place I thought they were, where I had looked 500 times the day before and I couldn't find them. I cried. I left my purse in the parking lot in a grocery cart at the grocery store. A stranger found it and contacted me. I was almost amazed that I could walk forward, I felt so disorientated.

I cried on Mark's grave. I cried in the car. I cried at the computer. I cried in Mark's garage. My daughters kept asking me what was wrong - Duh, your dad died.

The best thing I did for myself was join a grief share group. The web site is griefshare.org and they will send you a grief orientated devotional regarding grief for a year. You can put your zip in the site and find a group. It was good to sit and visit with people who shared their losses. Most of them were women who had lost their husbands. One was a sister who had lost her only other sibling, a brother. One was a single parent who had lost her only child, a 15 year son to suicide. We would talk, visit and learn about grief. Share our losses.

I want to encourage you to grieve all your losses. I want to let you know the pain is normal and it will pass. I want you to know that what you are going thru is awful and perfectly normal at the same time.

On the one year anniversary of Mark's death, I went to the men's group that Mark had been apart of. I did simple things. I lit a candle in Mark's memory. I read something I had written. I read the words to the song Mark had written for me for our wedding. The men responded in ways I could never imagine.

At Mark's memorial service, the pastor shared the story I told him. Mark had told me that he had a vision of heaven. He was in heaven and Jesus was showing him his new home. It was a blue (Mark's favorite color) country home on a acreage, there were dogs and kids playing in the year. It was perfect, he said.

When I'm at the men's group, one man said: I never pass a blue house that I don't think about Mark. I'm sure other people said other things. But that is what stuck with me.

I'm hoping that you will grieve Jerry. But that you will remember him. I'm hoping that you will go to the River Watchers and light a candle in Jerry's memory.

The other thing that touched me is that the Men's group met on Saturday morning at 8 am. I went to the Saturday evening service at 5 pm. When I came into the service, the candle I had lit that morning was still burning. No one wanted to blow it out.

Rita, I will pray for you as God brings you to my mind.

with love and sincere sympathy.

Dottie