Grief is hard

     Generally, I carefully wall myself off from others during the holiday season.  I like people and I like Christmas, I just believe that most people prefer for you to be happy.  I find this is true even in church.
     These past few days, my defenses have been crumbling.  It started when I turned on the news to see the funerals had started for the victims of the sandy Hook Elementary school shooting.  I immediately turned it off, but the tears had already started.  Just the thought of the pain that those parents are going through has torn off the scab and exposed the raw nerves and overwhelming pain.  I am again filled with the longing is terrible, the aching desire to hold my son, to see his angelic face, to hear his belly laugh, and to smell his sweet baby breath.
     It has been nearly 14 years since I buried my son, today, I feel the pain as though it were yesterday.  So today, I will cry-a lot.  I will be driving many hours to pick my daughter up from college and will spend that time praying, listening to music, calling my sister, remembering, and trying to work my heart through another holiday.  This pain does not hit me every day or even every month, but when it does, it hits hard.
     I am not the only person you know who feels the pain of loss so deeply that sometimes they wonder how they will take their next breath.  Can you handle being a real friend?  Can you love someone through the darkness, or will you turn away?  Grief is hard work, it changes you.  Can you mourn with someone else?  You just may be what keeps that person going.  Remember, that although they may seem fine and many years may have passed, they still remember, and the pain is still there.